Erasmus Darwin: A Life of Unequalled Achievement

Exuberant, bantering, unconventional Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) strides across these pages like a force of nature. This engaging, totally unstuffy biography of the prolific inventor, physician, poet and naturalist brings him out from the shadow of his more famous grandson, Charles Darwin, and should force a reappraisal of his place in history. A genius of astonishing diversity, Erasmus was a pioneer balloonist, freethinker, canal-builder, opponent of the British slave trade, coiner of words, inventor of a copying machine and designer of a multi-mirror telescope 200 years before the first operational model. King-Hele, who brings to this refreshing biography suitably diverse credentials as a British space scientist, historian, literary critic, poet and editor of Erasmus Darwin's Letters and Essential Writings, makes a cogent case that Erasmus was the first scientist to explain how clouds form and to outline the full process of photosynthesis. In 1794, Erasmus propounded biological evolution in his treatise Zoonomia; he was promptly condemned for denying God's role as creator of species. King-Hele traces Erasmus's poetic influence on Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge and finds many ""subconscious echoes"" of his work on evolution in his grandson's Origin of Species. Unstoppable Erasmus had two wives, 14 children, a mistress half his age and such lifelong friends as Ben Franklin and James Watt; he treated poor patients for free, traveled 30 miles a day on his rounds and was a renowned conversationalist despite a stammer. This brilliant biography plunges us deep into the scientific, medical and industrial revolutions and the birth of the modern age. Illus. (Mar.)