Emma Darwin had published two acclaimed works of historical fiction when she set out to write a novel about her extraordinarily eminent family, among them her great-great-grandfather Charles. The result was creative disaster, an epic writerly tangle that she chronicles in her new memoir, This is Not a Book about Charles Darwin.

In the first episode of a brand new series of the History Workshop Podcast, listen to Emma Darwin talk to Marybeth Hamilton about historical fiction and the perils of family story.

Produced by Marybeth Hamilton

Episode Notes:

Charles Darwin’s first diagram of an evolutionary tree from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837). Wikipedia Commons

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *