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From Booklist:
That Padel is Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter adds the allure of curiosity to her contribution to observance of his natal bicentenary. That’s good, because appreciative readers of this year’s celebratory batch of new biographies and new editions of Darwin’s writings stand to be keenly affected by this superbly crafted book. Rather than rewrite the letters, journals, and memoirs of her forebear and his associates, Padel pours them, as verbatim as rhythm and lineation allow, into unrhymed verses and stanzas most often resembling classical Latin couplets but also arrayed in repeating three-, four-, and five-line units and as faux blank verse. Padel’s own original writing fleshes out narration and description, though she is sparing with it, letting the native rhythms of the prose of well-educated yet nonliterary nineteenth-century upper-middle-class people envelop us with their intelligent passion. If she omits a few important episodes—most notably his experiences at Tierra del Fuego during the Beagle’s voyage—she definitely gives us a Darwin with whom we can wonder and feel, smile and weep. --Ray Olson