bicentennials. er books include the red notebook of the charles darwin's and charles darwin's notebooks 1836 to 1844. for more, visit umbc.edu and search her name. >> i'm constance carter, head of the science and technology division of the library of congress and today we're here in the theater of the library of congress' madison building. on this side of the table, we have the correspondence of charles darwin. he was born in 1809 and died in 1882. and here we have the first 16 volumes of his correspondence going up to 1868. we expect the volumes to end at probably 36. and i have some selected

correspondence such as this charles darwin's letters edited by fred burkhart and i like this particular volume because it's dedicated to me here and inscribed to me. and it says for connie, for whom so many of us thank god. and my brother, who thinks i'm lower than dirt, saw this and has treated me like a queen ever since. and here we have a piece from 1873. when i worked on the correspondence, most of the time i was looking for letters to editors of biographical materials and one day they asked me to find if there was a poem written by the crew. they didn't know what the name

of the crew was but it was one -- a poem that had been written for the 1873 mardi gras which was the theme of which was darwin's missing link. and so i found by putting in crew and darwin into the computer the missing link to darwin's origin of the species and it is beautifully illustrated and a 47-page poem. >> where does this book come from? >> this comes from the general stacks of the library of congress, but it was published presumably in louisiana because that's where it was printed. and we have some other books. today we're having a talk by sandra herbert and here is here award-winning book, charles

darwin geologist. she was looking for the origin of the origin of species and found that before 1859, all of his papers and books had been written in whole or in part about geology. so she went to england and had a great time looking in depth at darwin's manuscripts. and his little red notebook here as well as his other notebooks. and that's where she found the genesis of the origin on which she's going to speak today. >> i see that red notebook there was edited by sandra herbert. what's the story of that book. >> this is the book that she found at down cottage or down house where where darwin lived and she was granted access as a graduatetudent at brandeis and

a serious darwin scholar. this is charles darwin's beagle diary, and these are original charles darwin of his journal of researches of the countries he visited during the voyage of the beagle. and over here we have the eight volumes of darwin -- the diary of the beagle, the journal of the beagle, zoology of the beagle, the geology of the beagle. here is a picture of down house. and here is the study in which darwin wrote. and these are some of the stories of the people who lived at down house. and charles darwin wrote a life of erasmus darwin, his grandfather, and we have a book that erasmus sent to benjamin

franklin in the book room of the library of congress. and this darwin, his daughter, and we have two books written by his grandchildren. this period piece -- period piece, a cambridge childhood written by his granddaughter. and then this blue book here, the world that fred made, an autobiography written by the grandson whose mother died at birth and he spent most of his time growing up with charles darwin and emma, his wife. and here we have the two-volume correspondence of emma darwin,

his wife, a century of family letters. >> it seems like charles darwin did a lot of writing. >> yes, he did. he certainly did. as i said it's going to take 36 volumes just to complete his correspondence. >> how long has that project been underway? >> it's been underway for at least 20-ñ years. and it's expected to go another 20, 25 years. and it is available online. the correspondence is -- and you can find the website from the library's press release. >> in general, these books -- where do they come from? these aren't any first editions are they? >> no. these are books that mr. and mrs. america and all the ships at sea could call for any of the reading rooms in the library of congress. these are all books in the library's general collections.

the first editions will be in the rare book room. >> if somebody doesn't know about darwin and they want to start? >> well, they might want to begin with one of the magazine articles that has recently -- his birthday has spawned, nature, scientific americans, science. and you can see here we have books for the younger reader because a lot of younger readers are collectors as darwin was. and here are the rest of darwin's complete works. but there are a number of good biographies of darwin and one of the best is janet brown, who's at cornell.

her two-volume work of charles darwin voyaging and charles darwin the power of place. >> how did you get interested in this? >> my first job was in trinidad with william bee bee who was the first man to go down under the ocean in a bathosphere and he was a collector and he loved a.a. mill and charles darwin. and so when i came to the library of congress and found its wide collections and became a friend with sandra herbert, the author, and was asked to do a lot by the editor of the correspondence and as i did research for the correspondence of charles darwin, i became very interested. it was great fun to find bits and pieces that they had not

been able to find before. so it was all the joy of the hunt increased my knowledge and my love of charles darwin. >> abraham lincoln, charles darwin born on the same day. do you think lincoln has overshadowed darwin a bit? >> well, sandra herbert just gave a talk on darwin in the shadow of lincoln. and perhaps here in america, at least at this point in time, lincoln may have overshadowed but i think in the long run it will be darwin that we will remember the longest. >> and then finally if people want to learn about what they can about darwin from the library of congress, where should they go? >> they can come to the science reading room. and we have some books on darwin right in the reading room or they can use the online catalog at the library of congress and