Richard Owen

Brilliant, hard-working, immensely productive and influential, the naturalist Richard Owen was a great promoter of science, and played a large role in shaping Londons Natural History Museum. An often difficult and arrogant individual, he was accused of plagiarism and bullying, and is the only man whom Charles Darwin claimed to hate. Although strongly opposed to Darwin and Thomas Huxleys theories of evolution through natural selection, there is evidence that a few of Owens ideas were not so very distant from theirs. This biography gives an account of Owens life and work, providing possible psychological and social reasons for some of his more controversial characteristics, and his sometimes rather strained relations with his scientific contemporaries. See more