The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals usually been viewed in its relationship to Darwin's conception of "natural selection" as the central mechanism of evolutionary development, which he probably grasped some time around September 1838. These notes have a tentative and fragmented quality, especially in Darwin's descriptions of conversation with his father (a successful doctor with a special interest in psychiatric problems) about recurring patterns of behaviour in successive generations of his patients' families. Darwin was anxious about the materialistic drift in his thinking – and of the disrepute which this could attract in early Victorian England – at the time, he was mentally preparing for marriage
The Man in the Moone as one of the first works of science fiction, there is no general agreement that it is even "proto-science-fiction". Early commentators recognised that the book is a kind of picaresque novel, and comparisons with "Don Quixote" were being made as early as 1638. In structure as well as content "The Man in the Moone" somewhat resembles the anonymous Spanish novella "Lazarillo de Tormes" (1554); both books begin with a genealogy and start out in Salamanca, featuring a man who travels from master to master seeking his fortune. But most critics agree that the picaresque mode is not sustained throughout, and