The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication is a book by Charles Darwin that was first published in January 1868. A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants, but it also contains in Chapter XXVII a description of Darwin's theory of heredity which he called pangenesis. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication went on sale on 30 January 1868, thirteen years after Darwin had begun his experiments on breeding and stewing the bones of pigeons. He was feeling deflated, and concerned about how these large volumes would be received, writing "if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated ... The devil take the whole book". In his autobiography, Darwin estimated that he had spent 4-year 2 months "hard labour" on the book.
Background
Darwin had been working for two years writing his "big book", provisionally titled Natural Selection, when on 18 June 1858 he received a parcel from Alfred Wallace, who was then living in Borneo. It enclosed a twenty pages manuscript describing an evolutionary mechanism that was similar to Darwin's own theory. Under pressure to publish his ideas, Darwin started work on an "abstract" summary, which was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species. In the introduction he announced that in a future publication he hoped to give "in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded". On 9 January 1860, two days after the publication of the second edition of Origin, Darwin returned to his original Natural Selection manuscript and began expanding the first two chapters on "Variation under Domestication". He had a large collection of additional notes and by the middle of June had written drafts of an introduction and two chapters on the domestication of pigeons that would eventually form part of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. Darwin apparently found writing the book tiresome and writes in his autobiography that he had been "tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me more." In the following July (1861) he began work on different book, the Fertilisation of Orchids which was published in May 1862. Darwin continued to gather data. His own practical experiments were confined to plants but he was able to gather information from others by correspondence and even to arrange for some of his correspondents to conduct experiments on his behalf. In spite of protracted periods of illness, he made progress and in March 1865 wrote to his publisher, John Murray, saying that "Of present book I have 7 chapters ready for press & all others very forward, except the last & concluding one" (the book as finally published consisted of 28 chapters). In the same letter he discussed illustrations for the book. Darwin had been mulling for many years on a theory of heredity. In May 1865 he sent a manuscript to his friend Thomas Huxley outlining his theory which he called pangenesis and asking whether he should publish it. In his accompanying letter Darwin wrote "It is a very rash & crude hypothesis yet it has been a considerable relief to my mind, & I can hang on it a good many groups of facts." Huxley pointed out the similarities of pangenesis to the theories of Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet but eventually wrote encouraging Darwin to publish: "Somebody rummaging among your papers half a century hence will find Pangenesis & say 'See this wonderful anticipation of our modern Theories—and that stupid ass, Huxley, prevented his publishing them'".
Publication
Just before Christmas 1866 all of the manuscript except for the final chapter was sent to the publisher. At the beginning January on receiving an estimate of the size of the two volume book from the printers he wrote to his publisher: "I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear of the enormous size of my Book." He subsequently arranged for some of the more technical sections to be set in smaller type. Even at this late stage Darwin was uncertain as to whether to include a chapter on mankind. At the end of January he wrote to Murray: "I feel a full conviction that my Chapter on man will excite attention & plenty of abuse & I suppose abuse is as good as praise for selling a Book" but he then apparently decided against the idea for a week later in a letter to his close friend Joseph Hooker he explained "I began a chapter on Man, for which I have long collected materials, but it has grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, 'an essay on the origin of mankind'". This "essay" would become two books: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). The book had been advertised as early as 1865 with the unwieldy title Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants, or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under Domestication but Darwin agreed to the shorter The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication suggested by the compositors. By May he had arranged for the book to be translated into French, Russian and German. The French edition would be translated by Jean Jacques Moulinié, the German by Julius Victor Carus who had produced the revised version of Origin in 1866 and the Russian edition by Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky, the brother of the embryologist Alexander Kovalevsky. Darwin received the first proofs on 1 March 1867. In the tedious task of making correction he was helped by his 23-year-old daughter Henrietta Emma Darwin. In the summer while she was away in Cornwall he wrote to commend her work, "All your remarks, criticisms doubts & corrections are excellent, excellent, excellent". While making corrections Darwin also added new material. The proofs were finished on 15 November, but there was a further delay while William Dallas prepared an index. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication went on sale on 30 January 1868, thirteen years after Darwin had begun his experiments on breeding and stewing the bones of pigeons. He was feeling deflated, and concerned about how these large volumes would be received, writing "if I try to read a few pages I feel fairly nauseated ... The devil take the whole book". In his autobiography he estimated that he had spent 4-year 2 months "hard labour" on the book.
Contents
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