Autobiologies: Charles Darwin and the natural history of the self

Description

Through analysis of memoirs, diaries, letters, and natural histories by Victorian authors, this author explores how "evolutionary theories shaped nineteenth-century autobiographical practices and refashioned the human subject" and "how the lived experience of the individual theorist simultaneously impacted their biological formulations.". Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Darwinian Selves Part I: Darwin Chapter 1: Darwin's Family Chapter 2: Naturalist Self-Fashioning: Darwin and the Beagle Diary Chapter 3: Animal Darwin and the Sympathy Instinct ... 93Part II: Variations Chapter 4: Theories of Self-Transformation Chapter 5: "A natural history of myself": Herbert Spencer's Individuation Chapter 6: Harriet Martineau's Autothanatography and the Comtean Self Part III: Autobiologies Chapter 7: De Profundis, Degeneration and Wilde's Spencerian Individualism Chapter 8: Father and Son: Darwinism and the Struggle of Two Temperaments Chapter 9: In Memoriam and the Consolations of Development Conclusion: After the Victorians Bibliography Index About the Author