Autobiologies : Charles Darwin and the Natural History of the Self

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 What does heredity mean for identity? What role does the individual have in shaping a personal or a human history? What is the ethical status of seemingly biologically determined behaviours? What does individual death mean in the light of species extinction? Autobiologies explores the importance of such questions in Victorian life writing. Analysing memoirs, diaries, letters, and natural histories Alexis Harley demonstrates how theories of natural selection shaped nineteenth-century autobiographical practices and refashioned the human subject--and also how the lived experience of the individual theorist simultaneously impacted their biological formulations. --Dame Gilliam Beer, University of Cambridge "CHOICE" The nineteenth century saw both an explosion of evolutionary ideas and an explosion in autobiographical writing. This book examines the collision between evolutionary thought and practices of self-representation, to show how nineteenth-century natural history refashioned the human subject.