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A pursuit of the life and ideas of Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, and a prominent scientist, radical and Enlightenment man of letters. According to Coleridge he possessed 'perhaps a greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe' yet was the victim of vitriolic character assassination by London's most savage satirists. Fara sets out to investigate why Darwin had provoked such fierce intellectual and political reaction.
Synopsis
A tour of the late eighteenth century English Enlightenment in the company of Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, who (aside from his poetry and other scientific endeavours) was expounding theories of evolution years before the birth of his more famous grandson.
