The most significant events in the history of books on the 12th of December
1731: Erasmus Darwin is born. This natural philosopher, scientist, and poet was the grandfather of Charles Darwin. One of his poems, The Botanic Garden, anticipates the Big Bang theory when it describes an explosion, a ‘mass’ which ‘starts into a million suns’. He was also a restless inventor, devising both a copying machine and a speaking machine to impress his friends, though neither design ever received a patent.