Keynes, Randal

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KEYNES, Randal

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Riverhead Books, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER:

Author.

WRITINGS:

Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, Fourth Estate (London, England), 2001, published as Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Randal Keynes is the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, and his book Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution (published in the United States as Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution) portrays the scientist and evolutionary theorist as a kindly, gentle man and a devoted husband and father. Darwin was profoundly affected by the death of his daughter Annie, who lived to be only ten years old. She probably had tuberculosis, but accurate diagnosis was difficult in that era and treatment largely ineffective. Darwin traveled widely with Annie, consulting specialists and hoping for a cure, and he kept a journal that chronicled her decline. After her death, Darwin wrote a memorial to his daughter and then threw himself into his work on the origin of species. His wife, Emma, saved the girl's writing case—"Annie's Box"—which Keynes later found in a chest inherited from his grandmother. It contained such memorabilia as a pale yellow ribbon, a lock of Annie's hair, her goose-quill pens and stationery, and her father's notes on her illness.

In his book, Keynes attempts to link events in Darwin's personal life with key elements of his scientific theories. "It is in attempting to make these kinds of links that Keynes's book is at its most original and also at its weakest," commented Peter Skelton in a review for the British Journal for the History of Science. "Such links probably did exist for Darwin but Keynes is often in danger of overstating his case on shaky evidence." Skelton concluded that Annie's Box is "a competent synthesis of existing Darwin scholarship presented in an accessible, and often charming, form for the non-specialist audience." Ann Druyan, reviewing the book for the Washington Post, wrote that "Keynes's biography skillfully tells the inspiring story of a man whose heart and mind were equally prodigious. Darwin's fully realized life is the role model that a self-loathing, science-based civilization desperately needs. His example offers the possibility of repairing an ancient disconnect between what we know to be true and what we choose to believe. It's a potentially fatal affliction, one that in our own time has entered its acute stage."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Keynes, Randal, Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, Fourth Estate (London, England), 2001, published as Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Boston Globe, February 4, 2003, Chet Raymo, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, section C, p. 2.

British Journal for the History of Science, September, 2004, Peter Skelton, review of Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. 353.

Economist, August 4, 2001, review of Annie's Box, p. 77.

Guardian (Manchester, England), June 8, 2002, Jon Turney, review of Annie's Box, p. 32.

Harper's, February, 2002, Guy Davenport, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. 59.

Isis, September, 2003, Frank M. Turner, review of Annie's Box, p. 535.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2001, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. 1596.

Library Journal, January, 2002, Gloria Maxwell, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. 146.

Nature, June 14, 2001, Bruce Weber, review of Annie's Box, p. 739.

New Scientist, April 28, 2001, Geoff Watts, "Family Matters," p. 48.

Publishers Weekly, August 13, 2001, "Evolution Convolution," p. 224.

Scientific American, January, 2002, Richard Milner, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. 94.

Times Literary Supplement, August 3, 2001, Jim Endersby, review of Annie's Box, p. 10.

Washington Post, February 17, 2002, Ann Druyan, review of Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution, p. T13.