I read this because I was tired of hearing about Darwin and never having read him. The compilation included excerpts from his autobiography, The Voyage of the Beagle, On the Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man, as well as summary chapters on the response to Origin by Darwin’s contemporaries and the developments in evolutionary theory since Darwin.

Darwin was a pleasure to read: so matter-of-fact and curious about the world around him. The excerpts from his autobiography were blunt and fascinating. I really enjoyed his descriptions of the natural world. His theories were always supported by interesting concrete examples.

I didn’t enjoy the commentator, Kenneth Korey, as much because his writing was much less clear than Darwin’s and because he seemed to be trying too hard to defend Darwin at every turn. It seems to me that Darwin would have been fine with the changes that have occurred in evolutionary theory based on additional evidence. Darwin seemed to be concerned with describing how things are, adapting his theories as he saw fit. Fortunately, the whole point of the book is to present Darwin’s own writings, and Korey succeeds admirably at doing that. ( )