The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was published by John Murray in November 1872, less than a year after The Descent of Man. The book had been intended as a chapter of The Descent but grew into a separate work — Darwin’s most accessible book and, in some ways, his most radical. If The Descent argued that human bodies had evolved, The Expression argued that human emotions had evolved too — that the way we smile, weep, blush, and rage is not a product of culture or divine design but of evolutionary inheritance shared with other mammals.
Darwin organized the book around three principles: serviceable associated habits (expressions that originally served a practical function and became habitual), antithesis (opposite emotions produce opposite expressions), and the direct action of the nervous system (some expressions are simply physiological responses). He drew evidence from his own observations of children and infants (including his own), from correspondence with observers around the world (he sent questionnaires to missionaries, colonial administrators, and travelers), and from the behavior of animals.
The book is notable for its use of photographs — among the first in any scientific publication — showing human faces expressing different emotions. The photographs, by Oscar Rejlander, were technologically innovative and gave the book an immediacy that drawings could not achieve.
Modern psychology has confirmed many of Darwin’s central claims. Paul Ekman’s cross-cultural studies of facial expression, beginning in the 1960s, demonstrated that basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise) are expressed and recognized universally, exactly as Darwin predicted.
Collecting The Expression of the Emotions
First edition (John Murray, London, 1872): Green cloth binding, with photographic plates.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $3,000–$8,000
- Very good: $1,000–$3,000
- Good (plates intact): $500–$1,500