In 1844, a book entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published in Great Britain. Vestiges propounded an evolutionary scheme for the development of the universe and of the Earth and the plants and animals inhabiting it. Denounced for undermining religious faith, the book was extolled by others for presenting the latest scientific theories in a way that justified the progressive, industrial society of the Victorian era.

The "sensation" created by the publication of Vestiges has been revived in evocative style by James Secord of the University of Cambridge. With Secord's incisive study of the intellectual ferment of the 1840s and 1850s, it is possible for the first time to understand truly the cultural background of the book that would ultimately transcend Vestiges: Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

As Secord convincingly demonstrates, the true place of Vestiges in the history of science is not the brief footnote or passing reference to which it is usually consigned. Secord's detailed narrative shows that the decisive shift in popular attitudes toward evolutionary theory took place before the 1859 publication of Origin, largely through the tremendous impact of Vestiges. Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who had independently reached similar conclusions on the evolution of species, resolved the public debate that Vestiges had ignited over a decade before.

Secord contends that Origin and the The Descent of Man, published in 1871, were the concluding battles, not the first, in the Victorian struggle between apes and angels. Why, then, is Vestiges a largely forgotten book in comparison with Darwin's celebrated works? The answer is twofold, having as much to do with Victorian society as with the theories and conclusions the books propounded.

The ultimate success of Origin "derived from the decades of methodical and inspired fieldwork Darwin brought to his thesis." Vestiges differed radically; It was a brilliant example of what today would be called "a useful synthesis." Like Carl Sagan's Cosmos, it presented the latest scientific findings for a popular audience.

The second reason, if less significant, is more intriguing. When Darwin published Origin, he was already a highly esteemed scientist as well as a member of an influential family. He was a polished gentleman in a hierarchical, class-conscious society. Darwin not only "had the goods" but he fitted the Victorian ideal of the model scientist.

The author of Vestiges, on the other hand, was literally a "nobody." The book was published anonymously. Actually, the author of Vestiges was an accomplished Scottish journalist, Robert Chambers. The reason he published his book without revealing his identity - he went to the extreme length of having his wife recopy the manuscript lest the publisher recognize his handwriting - paralleled Darwin's long delay in publishing his findings: He feared public condemnation.

Chambers' apprehension was well founded. Sales of his book were high, but criticism was swift and extreme. One hostile critique of Vestiges ran to 85 pages in the Edinburgh Quarterly, perhaps the longest book review in history. More typical was the response of the critic of one of the later editions that "this writer has hatched a scheme, by which the immediate ancestor of Adam was a chimpanzee and his remote ancestor a Maggot!"

Numerous errors, some of them factual, were discovered, an embarrassment that Chambers labored to correct in the later editions. Most of the controversy involved charges that Vestiges promoted atheism, social upheaval - especially since ladies, including Queen Victoria, were enthusiastic readers - and a return to the horrors of the French Revolution. The theories of Vestiges, declared the distinguished clergyman, William Whewell, would lead to "a system of Order in which life grows out of dead matter, the higher out of the lower animals, and man out of brutes."

With Britain's first labor union, the Chartists, clamoring for political reform, the social implications of Vestiges for Britain's ruling elite were vastly disturbing. Chambers' intentions were anything but revolutionary: He acknowledged the existence of a supreme creator. He was disturbed, however, by the decline in the standards of much of British science, in large measure a consequence of poor scientific education. A good Scotsman and an avid golfer, he tried to support his conclusions by doing some fieldwork himself, investigating geological strata near the "links" of St. Andrews. Although he safeguarded his identity as the author of Vestiges, Chambers paid a heavy price for his success. The mere suspicion of his authorship cost him a prestigious political post. Most scientists reacted negatively, including Darwin, who commented on the book's "little accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific caution."

Secord's account of Chambers' story is fascinating and often humorous. A Scottish critic thought the author of Vestiges was an Englishman, a "Saxon," while another hostile savant was sure the writer was a woman! Literary politics and the strife between science and religion are only some of the themes that Secord skillfully explores. He treats the Victorian social background with equal authority.

One of the reasons for the success of Vestiges, and later of Darwin's classic books, was the explosive growth of information in early Victorian Britain, a development that was the counterpart of the Industrial Revolution. The recent invention of the steam printing press flooded the market with thousands of books, including press runs of best-sellers that seemed staggering when compared with those of the 1700s. Other Victorian innovations, notably the postage stamp and uniform postal rates, combined with the rapid dissemination of books and magazines all over Britain by rail shipment, enabled readers in country houses and small villages to ponder the controversial theories of Vestiges almost as quickly as the literary and scientific elite in London.

James Secord's Victorian Sensation brings an entire era and a vital intellectual struggle to life in memorable style. In the same way that Vestiges set the stage for the Darwinian revolution, so all future studies of the origins of evolutionary theory will have to accord this splendid book serious consideration.