[1] The volume, according to the publisher's website, "unravels Darwin’s life and his contribution to biology, and traces the path from his scientific predecessors to the later modifications that his own evolutionary theories required.

Work on the book proved difficult at times, according to illustrator Borin Van Loon, as the schedule of the author Jonathan Miller was, "always taken up with lighting Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House or making a television series on the human body.

"[5] Los Angeles Times reviewer Charles Solomon, however, dismisses it as, "a competent but by no means extraordinary biography.

"[6] Professor Jon Seger, writing in New Scientist, describes the style of author Jonathan Miller, who he point out is primarily known as a TV physician, as, "that of a television documentary.

"[7] Miller and Van Loon have, concludes Seger, "not produced a work of scholarship," but have, "brought to life an important chapter of scientific history.