Charles Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species, can still spark lively conversations at 21^st century dinner parties. Imagine what people were talking about in 1860, shortly after it was published. On New Year’s Day, abolitionist and schoolmaster Franklin Sanborn hosted a dinner party. Henry David Thoreau, local superintendent Bronson Alcott (Louisa May Alcott’s father) and Asa Gray, a professor of natural history at Harvard, were present. Child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace was the guest of honor. He arrived, book in hand, ready for a lively exchange. Find out how these five intellectuals and others reacted to and were later influenced by Darwin’s ideas, perhaps the single most important ideas of the time.

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Eight Cousins Books, our co-host, will have copies of this book at the talk.
The book will also be available in the store at 189 Main Street in Falmouth.