I first saw the box one day in the 1990s when I was looking for Darwin material in a chest of drawers I knew to contain family odds and ends. The first thing I saw when I opened the box was a note in Darwin’s handwriting headed ‘Annie’s illness’. When I unfolded it I saw that he had been watching her every day during the illness and seeing how she was after the treatment she had been given first thing in the morning.
I was surprised to find that Darwin had been so closely involved in looking after Annie during the illness, and looked for what there was to read about his feelings for her through her childhood and after her
death.

I found the remarkable story I set out in my book. I wrote the book because I felt that the whole part of Darwin’s life that Annie was part of, his care and love for his wife and children, was important
for an understanding of the man and his ideas about human nature, which were themselves important for his ideas about all human and natural life.

Finding the box shaped my life because it led me into the deep interest in Darwin which now takes me to Shrerwsbury where he spent his childhood, Galapagos and other wonderful places around the world that he visited on the Beagle voyage, and Down House where he went to live with Emma and their children and worked on his theory. I’m lucky with my family link to Darwin. His life and work are a wonderful interest to find!

Out of curiousity, do you have any upcoming London talks coming up? Would love to hear you speak in person as I feel you have a lot to share.

Your book when it first came out was called Annie’s Box, and it referred to the little box that belonged to Annie that contained her writings and other things she’d collected. I felt like the movie didn’t really explain the significance of that box, although if I remember correctly it does show the box a few times.

I’m curious to know more about how finding that box shaped your life. Can you tell us what was in the box? And how and when did you come across it? What about it made you want to write this book?

However I think that truth always wins down the line and thankfully he had the courage to present his findings, causing the number one thought/discovery to filter into our human history. More knowledge of our human condition allows for human progress.

I do question if I would have the courage or desire to do what he did if I were in his place. Painful both ways.

Fantastic movie and great discussion!

What most intrigues me is the contrasting ideas of your great-great-grandfather about the natural world and those of your great-uncle (John Maynard Keynes) about the unnatural world of economics. I wonder what Darwin might have thought about the role of evolutionary processes in economies. Given Darwin’s stressful feelings over evolution vs. religion, did he see a conflicting line between the laws that apply to nature and the laws that apply to humanity? And, in the context of Keynesian economics, what might Darwin have thought about governments intervening in markets and financial systems in which unfettered evolutionary/market forces don’t always produce humane results?