Introduction to Darwin Online

The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (or Darwin Online) is by far the largest publication on Darwin in history—and probably the most comprehensive scholarly website on any historical person. It includes and integrates all of his publications, notes and manuscripts with his entire libraries and other sources, the reviews of his works, the most complete bibliography of his publications ever created as well as the most comprehensive union catalogue of his manuscripts and the foundational works and studies about him. Far from a compilation of existing materials, as a research project, Darwin Online has uncovered hundreds of previously unknown Darwin publications, letters, manuscripts, reviews, obituaries, sources, his specimens, recollections of Darwin and includes numerous major revisions to the scholarship in the field such as a comprehensive catalogue of Darwin photographs. It has been called by numerous reviewers and scholarly organisations "a monumental achievement".

The majority of Darwin's writings have been edited and annotated here for the first time with more than 18,000 editorial notes and introductions. The complete library of the Beagle has been reconstructed as has Darwin's vast personal library. All of these constitute unprecedented progress in these areas of research into an important part of the history of science. There has never been anything like it before. Three major works of Darwin scholarship were published first as part of Darwin Online (Darwin's Shorter publications, Charles Darwin's notebooks from the voyage of the Beagle, and Charles Darwin's geological diary and field notes from the voyage of the Beagle). The Complete Library of Charles Darwin is the result of 20 years of research by this project. The Complete Photographs of Charles Darwin is an annotated catalogue that is also orders of magnitude beyond the state of scholarship before.

Darwin Online contains 400,000 searchable text pages, 231,000 page images, 123,000 scans of manuscripts and private papers, 8,800 PDFs, hundreds of thousands of illustrations in books, Darwin's writings in 29 languages, 7,000 bibliographical records in the most comprehensive bibliography of Darwin's writings (with hundreds of newly discovered items) and 78,000 manuscript and archive records in the largest and most accurate union catalogue of his manuscripts and papers ever created covering 80 institutions and private collections.

Darwin Online provides the largest collection of Darwin's private papers and manuscripts ever published: c.20,000 items, thanks primarily to the kind permission of Cambridge University Library. Over 10,500 manuscripts have been transcribed so far. These numbers break down roughly as follows:

     251,500 images of publications (not counting those in PDF form only, which totals perhaps 800,000 more)
     124,000 images of manuscripts

     50,200 pages of transcribed Darwin manuscripts (10,100 of these were previously published)
     70,200 pages of transcribed Darwin publications
     200,400 total pages by Darwin (includes different editions and translations of the same works) These totals do not count the hundreds of Darwin translations provided only as PDFs.
     900,000 pages by other authors (including the Beagle Library but not counting the hundreds of thousands of pages in Darwin's library which are mostly in PDF format)

The pilot website by John van Wyhe, The writings of Charles Darwin on the web (2002-6), was replaced on 19 October 2006 with the launch of this website at the University of Cambridge.

The launch became an international media sensation—reported on television, radio, newspapers, magazines and throughout the internet, reaching an estimated 400 million people. The site was swamped with millions of hits in the first 48 hours, bringing the server at the University of Cambridge down for a short time, twice. It remains the most media coverage of any publication from the history of science field. Subsequent launches, such as Darwin's manuscripts and private papers (here & here) or Emma Darwin's diaries, created similar worldwide media sensations. Since then the site has been accessed by tens of millions of readers and from every country in the world. Read about the launch of the site here.

All of Darwin's unpublished manuscripts are being scanned, transcribed or both, if reproduction permission can be obtained. All previously published manuscript transcriptions are included. Overall the site provides the world's largest collection of material on and by Darwin- and almost all of it is online only here.

Some of the distinguishing features and innovations on Darwin Online include:

• The first complete collection of all Darwin's publications. Many have never been reproduced and almost all appear online for the first time, including many newly discovered items. Publications.
We have also discovered many previously unknown Darwin publications.

• Each text is absolutely complete, nothing is omitted (as so often with online texts) including the spine, end pages and publishers' advertizements.

• Both fully formatted electronic text and images of the original document are provided. These can be viewed side-by-side. Example. Darwin's works are also provided in PDF format for downloading and printing.

• The most comprehensive Darwin bibliography ever published (building on the pioneering work of R. B. Freeman): the Freeman bibliographical database. See also the bibliography of works cited on Darwin Online which is the first bibliography of the works cited in Darwin's shorter publications.

• Translations. Darwin's works are also available in 29 languages, including: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Yiddish. More languages forthcoming - donations welcome.

• Many of the books are signed by Darwin or belonged to his family: Francis Darwin's annotated copy of Origin, Origin, Journal of researches, Expression, Life of Erasmus Darwin, Coral reefs, Forms of flowers, Power of movment or Emma Darwin (1904) vols. 1 & 2.

• The largest collection of Darwin's manuscripts and private papers ever published. Click here. Thousands of never before published transcriptions, such as the Galapagos notebook, Beagle animal notes and his student bills from Christ's College, Cambridge and drafts of his books.

• The first and largest union catalogue of Darwin's handwritten manuscripts and private papers ever assembled (based primarily on the Cambridge University Library catalogue by Nick Gill) - but including over 80 cooperative institutions and collectors around the world.
The catalogue has been improved with thousands of corrections, additions, dates and identifications, making it far more accurate and detailed than the original catalogues upon which it is based.

An extract from Darwin's barnacle notes.

• Supplementary Works relevant to studying and understanding Darwin and his context, such as 1,800 reviews of his books (the largest collection ever published for any scientific figure) or obituaries and recollections of Darwin (again the largest collection ever published for any figure in science).
Darwin Online also contains the most complete list ever published of scientific descriptions of Darwin's Beagle specimens by other men of science.

-The Complete Library of Charles Darwin- its full scope and contents (over 13,000 volumes/items) revealed and available only in Darwin Online.

-The Beagle Library- the entire reconstructed library Darwin used during his famous voyage.

-The Complete Photographs of Darwin- the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched listing of the photographs of Darwin, or any figure of science, ever created.

-Caricatures of Darwin and evolution the largest collection in history with hundreds of newly uncovered illustrations.

• New editorial introductions to help readers understand Darwin's work and context. All of Darwin's shorter publications, the majority of his published items, have been edited and annotated here for the first time.

• New items are still being discovered and added to the site as well as further editions and translations when copies become available. These and other newly added materials are listed on the what's new page.

• Although Darwin Online is a scholarly resource, jargon and unhelpful abbreviations and trendy organizational formats have been avoided and a major works page provides an accessible overview.

• The historical works and database are fully searchable. Searches can be limited by name, date, title and so forth, in addition to a powerful battery of advanced search options. See Search and Search help.

• It's completely free to use! However, funding is still badly needed to keep the project going. See Support.

Many individuals and institutions have helpfully contributed to make Darwin Online possible; for a complete list of contributors see Credits and Acknowledgments.

Darwin's unpublished letters were the focus of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin project (1974-2023).

John van Wyhe