Ross Wilson
University of Cambridge

Perhaps it is not such a bad posthumous fate to be chiefly known as the grandfather of someone much more renowned – not as bad, that is, as being known only as the son or daughter of a more feted progenitor from beneath whose shadow it proves impossible to emerge. Erasmus Darwin died some seven years before the birth of Charles, who was to become, amongst so much else, his grandfather’s somewhat less than hagiographic biographer: ‘It is curious,’ he remarked, with notable restraint, ‘how largely my grandfather […] anticipated [Lamarck’s] erroneous views’; and even more withering is the observation that ‘no one of the present generation reads, as it appears, a single line of [his poetry]’. Overshadowed by his grandson’s achievements and fallen from poetic favour, Erasmus Darwin was long considered as at best an influence on much more celebrated figures, including Charles, but also on poets such as Coleridge and...