Charles Darwin Autographed Note Signed.

DARWIN, Charles.

Item Number: 69022

Autographed note signed from Charles Darwin. The letter reads, “I am glad your lectures are going on so well and with many thanks, believe me yours very sincerely, Ch. Darwin,” Double matted and framed with an Elliot & Fry carte de visite of Darwin. The entire piece measures 12.5 inches by 18 inches.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and, in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species. By the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favored competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.