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The Fall of Man or, The Loves of the Gorillas, by a Learned Gorilla / Richard Grant White (New York, 1871)

The Fall of Man or, The Loves of the Gorillas, by Richard Grant White (New York, 1871), p. 6

The author reassures his audience that he has dealt with his subject matter with great delicacy and therefore, unlike Darwin, not found it necessary “to cloak any part of [the] lecture in the obscurity of a learned language”.

The Fall of Man or, The Loves of the Gorillas, by Richard Grant White (New York, 1871), pp. 46 – 47

The author cites Darwin’s use of Latin in a footnote on p.13 of Descent, vol. 1 which veiled a statement on baboons’ sexual attraction to human females. Here, the author not only translates elements of the Latin into English but also provides an illustration of said sexual frenzy in action, thus deliberately making it accessible to the broadest possible audience.

The Descent of Man (London, 1871), Vol. 1, p. 13, n. 7

Darwin’s Latin statement, most likely translated by his son Francis, on certain baboons’ sexual attraction to human females.

While many reviewers dealt cautiously with the content and language of Descent, other responses were altogether less prudish. Penned by ‘a learned gorilla’, The Fall of Man or, The Loves of the Gorillas (1871) offered up a comic lecture on Descent for a popular audience, poking fun at Darwin’s attempt to sanitize his work along the way.