by John Darnton
The modern-day characters are entirely fictitious. There is a well-known longitudinal study of evolutionary changes among finches in the Galápagos, documented in the Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Beak of the Finch, which provided material for scene-setting details and information on natural selection, but any resemblance to real persons is unintentional and purely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Darwin scholars and institutions housing and promoting his work turn out to be extremely generous when it comes to helping a writer, even one who admits to crossing the boundary from scholarship into fiction. Among them, I would like to especially thank Frederick Burkhardt and his colleagues, engaged in the long-term research project The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, for their guidance, and Adam Perkins of the Cambridge University Library, for making available material from the Darwin archives. I am also indebted to John Murray, Darwin’s publisher; the Linnean Society of London; the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum in London; and Down House in County Kent, all of which provided extensive tours and explanations about his life, research, and publications. I also thank the Field Museum and its president and CEO, John W. McCarter, Jr., and Donald Stewart, for sponsoring an essential and unforgettable voyage to the Galápagos in July 2002.
Books on Darwin are so numerous that they could stock an entire library wing. Among them are some I found especially useful. Janet Browne’s two-volume biography— Voyaging and The Power of Place—were indispensable. I also borrowed liberally from Alan Moorehead’s highly readable Darwin and the Beagle. I culled details on life at Down House from Annie’s Box and Period Piece; on Darwin’s supporters and enemies from Apes, Angles and Victorians; on the voyage around the world from HMS Beagle; and on Captain FitzRoy’s tragic story from Evolution’s Captain. Jonathan Weiner’s The Beak of the Finch, which describes the groundbreaking evolutionary study on the island of Daphne Major in the Galápagos, provided essential information (down to the nickname of the “welcome mat” for the docking site) that I used for my fictional counterpart on Sin Nombre.
On a personal note, I thank Phyllis Grann, my editor, for shaping and shepherding the manuscript; Sonny Mehta, my publisher, for his suggested revisions; and Kathy Robbins, my agent, for her ideas and enthusiasm. I thank Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, for granting me three months’ leave and Marion Underhill of the Times’ London bureau for tracking down information. And finally, I thank my family—my brother, Bob, and my children, Kyra, Liza, and James—for vetting the manuscript. Above all, I thank my wife, Nina, for reading every word, discussing every idea, helping create every character, and never once saying she was sick and tired of the whole damn thing.
Bibliography
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Table of Contents
Acclaim for John Darnton’s The Darwin Conspiracy
Title
Copyright
About the Author
Dedication
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Bibliography