In the three months following the appearance of Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, the Victorian humour magazine Fun published several cartoons and even a poem devoted to the book. One exploits Darwin’s view of human emotions…
Andrew Smith, an army surgeon stationed in South Africa, discusses Khoisan or ‘Hottentot’ notions of beauty in women; in particular their preference for women with large posteriors and lengthened ‘Nymphae’ (inner labia). Too sensitive for a general…
Engravings were more expensive to print than photographs: but animal expressions were more difficult to capture. The most famous of the artists Darwin engaged to illustrate Expression was Briton Riviere, an animal painter who in 1871 was working for…
Darwin broke with previous traditions in physiognomy. His notebooks and correspondence contain references to earlier works in the field, such as the Fragments of Physiognomy of Johann Caspar Lavater. Darwin owned the ten-volume French edition, with…
Darwin made use of a worldwide network of scientists and non-scientists to gather information. In 1867, he began to send out handwritten questionnaires about human expression, in particular to those who were in contact with non-European peoples.…
Darwin asks his son, Francis, and his Cambridge University friends to check his Latin. Latin was not Darwin's strong point and he frequently relied on his sons and colleagues to check his efforts (see letter to George Robert Gray, below).
Darwin writes to Zoologist George Robert Gray asking him to proof read his Latin in the Birds section of The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle (1839).