Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions Between 1868 and 1872, the life and work of Charles Darwin from "Descent of Man" to "Emotions" continued with aspects of his intended "Big Book" on evolution through natural selection. He had by then hurriedly published an "abstract" of this work as "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, and following the immediate reaction to Darwin's theory his earlier work included demonstrating the utility of the flowers of Orchids in directing insect pollination to achieve cross fertilisation, and a summing up of thirteen years of experiments in "The Variation of Animals and Plants
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication grown too long, & I think I shall publish separately a very small volume, 'an essay on the origin of mankind'". This "essay" would become two books: "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871) and "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872). The book had been advertised as early as 1865 with the unwieldy title "Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants, or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection under Domestication" but Darwin agreed to the shorter "The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication" suggested by the compositors. By May he