Missing Ink: Darwin Notebooks, Long Unseen, Now Believed Stolen



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Have you seen this man’s missing notebooks? Cambridge University Library appealed for public help Tuesday, saying that a pair of notebooks by Charles Darwin — seen here in 1875 — have been missing for nearly two decades.

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Among the missing papers is a sketch that Darwin composed in 1837, shortly after returning from the voyage on the HMS Beagle that helped inspire his theory of evolution. The little drawing, better known among scholars as the «Tree of Life» sketch, reveals elements of Darwin’s thinking more than two decades before he fleshed out his ideas in his ground-breaking On the Origin of Species.

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Included in the missing notebooks is Charles Darwin’s famous «tree of life» sketch, according to Cambridge University Library.

Cambridge University Library


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Cambridge University Library

Included in the missing notebooks is Charles Darwin’s famous «tree of life» sketch, according to Cambridge University Library.

Cambridge University Library

In at least one way, the date of the library’s announcement was a natural selection: Darwin’s seminal work was published precisely 161 years, to the day, before Cambridge released its appeal for help Tuesday.

As for why it took so long for the library to report the notebooks missing: Though a number of searches had turned up nothing as to their whereabouts, the prevailing assumption among Gardner’s predecessors was that the notebooks simply had been «misfiled,» the librarian told the BBC.

The library says the notebooks were last seen in the fall of 2000, when they were taken out of the room «where the rarest and most valuable items are kept» for a photography session. But they were not found during a «routine check» conducted in January 2001.

The two notebooks were contained in a small box «about the size of a paperback book,» according to the library.

Several investigations followed, but it was only after the failure of a comprehensive search of the Darwin Archive’s 189 boxes earlier this year that the library came to a different — and altogether more sinister — conclusion: «They have likely been stolen.»

If there is a silver lining here, it is this: Before the disappearance of their physical manuscripts, both notebooks were digitized — and they are available for anyone to peruse online currently here and here.

If you happen to have any information regarding these notebooks’ whereabouts the local police are accepting tips here, and the library welcomes further information over email.

  • Charles Darwin
  • United Kingdom
  • Cambridge



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