Autobiologies : Charles Darwin and the natural history of the self / Alexis Harley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harley, Alexis, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Autobiography--History--19th century.

Autobiography.

Evolution (Biology)--Authorship.

Evolution (Biology).

Literature and science--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and science.

History.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xvii, 213 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg, [Pennsylvania] : Bucknell University Press ; Lanham, Maryland : Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., [2015]

Summary:

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."

Contents:

Introduction : Darwinian selves

Darwin's family

Naturalist self-fashioning and seeing in Darwin's Beagle diary

Animal Darwin and the sympathy instinct

Theories of self-transformation

"A natural history of myself"

Harriet Martineau's Autothanatography and the Comtean self

De profundis, degeneration and Wilde's Spencerian individualism

Father and son : Darwinism and the struggle of two temperaments

In memoriam, and the consolations of development

Conclusion : After the Victorians.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-208) and index.

ISBN:

9781611486001

1611486009

OCLC:

887858561