Do Charles Darwin's private letters contradict his public sexism?

He declared that women's brains were "analogous to those of animals", but conducted scholarly personal correspondence with women, new book reveals

Charles Darwin may have held less hostile views about women than previously thought, according to a new book out this month. Drawing on letters between the father of evolutionary science and the women he knew, the book reveals close ties between the scientist, his family and leading feminist figures in the 19th century, including medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and social reformer Josephine Butler.

Darwin and Women by Samantha Evans, published by Cambridge University Press, is the latest book to come out of the Darwin Correspondence Project, which was started at the university in 1974 and is due to finish in 2022, when letters between the pioneering naturalist and his circle will be made available online for free.