Darwin’s Wonders uses Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque as a lens to explore the works of Charles Darwin. It works surprisingly well.
Many other authors are shaping the project along the way. This evolving bibliography gathers the most influential books and essays. Where possible, I have linked directly to digitised editions and historical illustrations.
All of Darwin’s texts can be accessed via Darwin Online.
If you know of any texts that touch on these themes and should be included, I’d be very grateful for your recommendations.
Armstrong, Patrick. Under the Blue Vault of Heaven: A Study of Charles Darwin’s Sojourn in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Nedlands: Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies, 1991. Darwin Online.
Baker, Henry. An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Polype: In a Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq.; President of the Royal Society. London: R. Dodsley, 1743. Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Sergeiy Sandler. Foreword by Caryl Emerson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2025.
Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
Bredekamp, Horst. Darwin’s Corals: A New Model of Evolution and the Tradition of Natural History. Translated, edited, and adapted by Elizabeth Clegg. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
Darwin, Charles. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882: With the Original Omissions Restored. Edited by Nora Barlow. London: Collins, 1958.
Darwin, Charles. Charles Darwin’s Zoology Notes and Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle. Edited by Richard Keynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Darwin, Charles. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: John Murray, 1872.
Darwin, Charles. The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits. London: John Murray, 1881.
Darwin, Charles. Insectivorous Plants. London: John Murray, 1875.
Darwin, Charles. Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle, under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., from 1832 to 1836. London: Henry Colburn, 1839.
Darwin, Charles. A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of All the Species: The Balanidae (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidae, etc. London: Ray Society, 1854.
Darwin, Charles. A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of All the Species: The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes. London: Ray Society, 1851.
Darwin, Charles. “Notebook B: Transmutation of Species.” 1837–38. Cambridge University Library, DAR 121.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray, 1859.
Darwin, Charles. On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. London: John Murray, 1862.
Darwin, Charles. The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs: Being the First Part of the Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle, under the Command of Capt. FitzRoy, R.N., during the Years 1832 to 1836. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1842.
Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998.
Ellis, John. An Essay towards a Natural History of the Corallines, and Other Marine Productions of the Like Kind, Commonly Found on the Coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Printed for the author and sold by A. Millar, J. and J. Rivington, and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755. Museums Victoria.
Helmreich, Stefan. “Ghost Lineages, Ghost Acres, and Darwin’s ‘Diagram of Divergence of Taxa’ in On the Origin of Species: Critical Commentary Inspired by Banu Subramaniam’s Ghost Stories for Darwin.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 4, no. 2 (2018): 1–17.
Kayser, Wolfgang. The Grotesque in Art and Literature. Translated by Ulrich Weisstein. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.
Levine, George. “Hardy’s Woodlanders and the Darwinian Grotesque.” In Darwin the Writer, 186–210. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Müller-Wille, Staffan. “The Dark Side of Evolution: Caprice, Deceit, Redundancy.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 31 (2009): 183–200.
Müller-Wille, Staffan. “The Economy of Nature in Classical Natural History.” Studies in the History of Biology 4, no. 4 (2012): 38–49.
Phillips, Richard. The Hundred Wonders of the World, and of the Three Kingdoms of Nature. Published under the name Rev. C. C. Clarke. 13th ed. London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1821.
Shaw, George. The Naturalist’s Miscellany; or, Coloured Figures of Natural Objects, Drawn and Described Immediately from Nature. Illustrated by Frederick Polydore Nodder. Vol. 2. London: Nodder & Co., 1790–91. Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Shaw, George. Zoological Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution in the Years 1806 and 1807. Vol. 1. London: Printed for George Kearsley by Thomas Davison, 1809. Internet Archive.
Sloan, Phillip R. “Darwin’s Invertebrate Program, 1826–1836: Preconditions for Transformism.” In The Darwinian Heritage, edited by David Kohn, 71–120. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Smith, Jonathan. Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Stott, Rebecca. Darwin and the Barnacle. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.
Stott, Rebecca. “Darwin’s Barnacles: Mid-Century Victorian Natural History and the Marine Grotesque.” In Transactions and Encounters: Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Roger Luckhurst and Josephine McDonagh, 151–81. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
Ulin, Donald. “A Clerisy of Worms in Darwin’s Inverted World.” Victorian Studies 35, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 294–308. JSTOR.
Voss, Julia. Darwin’s Pictures: Views of Evolutionary Theory, 1837–1874. Translated by Lori Lantz. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.