It has doubtless been fortunate for Darwin’s reputation that his theory of pangenesis is not as well remembered as his theory of evolution by natural selection. As vague in detail as it was ambitious and comprehensive in scope, it was unpersuasive at the time and has since been proven completely wrong. But like _Variation_ as a whole, which similarly illustrated the limitations of its author as well as his strengths, pangenesis does not therefore lack interest or significance. Despite recent excellent and well-appreciated studies of his entire life and extended _oeuvre_ (Janet Browne, _Charles Darwin: Voyaging_ [New York: Knopf, 1995] and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, _Darwin_ [London: Michael Joseph, 1991], Darwin is known primarily as the author of the _Origin,_ which is unrepresentative in its economy of structure, argument, and evidence, as well as on account of its historical notoriety. Its enforced streamlining has helped to preserve the _Origin_’s accessibility, but its relative paucity of examples was particularly uncharacteristic of Darwin. _Variation,_ with its accumulation of evidence about everything from the webbing between dogs’ toes to the weight of gooseberries, was much more typical; in addition, it placed Darwin firmly—indeed, irretrievably—within his time, rather than in an achronological limbo reserved for intellectual heroes. As a graduate student from the People’s Republic of China told me several years ago, after having participated in a seminar that read excerpts from _Variation_ and _The Expression of the Emotions,_ if the leaders of his government knew that Darwin had written such books, he would not be officially admired.