Introduction

Men of the Day, No. 33. “Natural Selection.”’, Vanity Fair (30th September, 1871)

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London, 1871)

Descent is Darwin’s second book on evolutionary theory. In Descent Darwin applies the evolutionary theory of On the Origin of the Species (1859) to human evolution; he provides detailed evidence of the relationship between man and other forms and expands on his theory of ‘sexual selection’ – i.e. the inter and intra selection of sexual partners which drove the evolution of species.

Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London, 1872)

Like Descent, the main consideration of Expression is human origins. In Expression Darwin focused on human emotion and psychology, exploring the origin of genetically determined aspects of human behaviour and emotion.

Charles Darwin as represented in Vanity Fair’s ‘Men of the Day’ series in 1871. As this image and caption suggests, by the time he published Descent in 1871 Charles Darwin was well known and well respected for his major work On the Origin of the Species, first published almost twelve years earlier.