''The Origin'' is a

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fiction ...

of the life of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

written by

Irving Stone Irving Stone (born Tennenbaum, July 14, 1903 – August 26, 1989) was an American writer, chiefly known for his biographical novels of noted artists, politicians, and intellectuals. Among the best known are '' Lust for Life'' (1934), about the l ...

. Darwin was a geologist and biologist, and could be considered the father of

evolutionary Evolution is change in the heredity, heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the Gene expression, expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to ...

theory. The novel begins with Darwin at the age of 22 and follows him through the Voyage of the Beagle until his death in 1882. Stone took five years to research and write the novel and consulted numerous Darwin scholars and even Darwin's descendants in order to write his version of Darwin's life.

References

*Stone, I (1980) ''The Origin'', Doubleday. *

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

''On Telling, Altering and Enriching Stories: An Unpublished Darwin Letter from a Key Incident in his Later Life.''
''Evolutionary Paleobiology'' (David Jablonski, Douglas H. Erwin and Jere H. Lipps, editors), pp. 437–460; University of Chicago Press, 1996. . 1980 American novels Historical novels Biographical novels Novels by Irving Stone Cultural depictions of Charles Darwin Novels set in the 19th century Doubleday (publisher) books {{1980s-bio-novel-stub