French astronomer Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) won acclaim for bringing science to a general readership. His Astronomie populaire (1880) and its translation into English as Popular Astronomy (1894) are both reissued in this series. The present work, on the origins of the Earth and humankind, sold tens of thousands of copies. Flammarion's original purpose was to update Zimmermann's Le monde avant la création de l'homme, published a quarter of a century earlier. However, scientific understanding had progressed so much that he decided to rewrite the work completely. First published in 1886, it contains some 400 wood engravings depicting dramatic landscapes, dinosaurs, fossils and much more. Ranging from early chapters on the universe and solar system, through to later discussion of the emergence of humankind after aeons of evolution, this book will prove an absorbing read for those interested in a nineteenth-century perspective on the origins of life.
