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.

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.