Darwin in Caricature: A Study in the Popularisation and Dissemination of Evolution

TN THE YEARS that followed the publication of the Origin of Species Darwin became one of the most famous naturalists in the L world, "first among the scientific men of England," as Edward Aveling put it, his name inextricably linked with the idea of evolution and with the larger shifts in public opinion gathering pace as the century drew toward a close.2 Few other scientific theories have spread as far as Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Within ten years of publication in London of On the Origin of Species (1859) there were sixteen different editions in England and America, and translations into German, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian, and Swedish, accompanied by important commentaries, criticisms, and supporting texts. There would be many more to come. Through these means people all over the developed world were able to read Darwin's work in their own languages and, if they wished, participate in what was one of the first truly international scientific debates. This extraordinary phenomenon has, of course, attracted much scholarly attention. Much of Darwin's prominence was expressed in characteristically nineteenth-century form. Well-established analyses by Thomas Glick, whose admirable volume first opened up the field of comparative reception studies, by Alvar Ellegard on the reception of Darwin's theories in the British periodical press, and Ron Numbers's recent book Disseminating Darwin, have long been regarded as standard works. The collected Correspondence of Charles Darwin, edited