The surprising spread of the Annie hypothesis

As I have pointed out in previous posts, I have been working on a paper on the unsubstantiated claim that his daughter Annie's death led to Darwin's abandonment of Christianity. Once the paper is press, I will present my analysis of just what flimsy evidence the "Annie hypothesis" was based on by its originator, James Moore. But for now, let's just take a look at how far this modern "Darwin myth" has spread and how many people have suckered by it (even Carl Zimmer has been taken in!). 

Note, I use the term "myth" not so much in the sense of "false story" although I do think it is false, or at least unfalsifiable, but more because so many people wish to draw moral lessons from it. Most people seem far more comfortable with the idea that Darwin gave up Christianity only after something as traumatic as the death of a daughter, rather for the mostly dry intellectual reasons he cites in his Autobiography.

Anyhow, here is a draft of a table from the paper, showing quite how far the "Annie hypothesis" has spread. If you know of any additional striking examples of its presentation in print or on screen, please let us know by adding comments.

Table 1 Selected examples of the Annie Hypothesis in print, on screen and online

	Year	Quotations and context
In Print
1859 and All That: Remaking the Story of Evolution-and-Religion James R. Moore	1982	"Perhaps it was the "bitter and cruel" death in 1851 of ten-year-old Annie, his favourite child, just a month after he had read the moral challenge to that doctrine in Francis Newman's "excellent" spiritual Autobiography Faith, that prompted Darwin, as he later said, to give up Christianity once and for all."
Of Love and Death: Why Darwin 'gave up Christianity', James Moore	1989	See text of paper for discussion (in preparation).
Darwin, Desmond and Moore	1991	Account of Annie’s illness and death interspersed with interpolations about Darwin’s loss of faith.
Charles Darwin, Voyaging. Janet Browne.	1995	“His sense of God had virtually disappeared along with his daughter Anne.”
Rebecca Stetoff, , Charles Darwin And The Evolution Revolution	1996	"Darwin's own Christianity, never very deeply held, gradually eroded as he worked out his theory of natural selection; the remnants of his faith were wiped out entirely by the suffering and death of his daughter Annie in 1851. Later in life he described himself as an Agnostic--one who questions but does not flatly deny the existence of God. ... [Annie's] death destroyed the last lingering remnants of Darwin's Christianity."
Evolution, The Triumph of an Idea, Carl Zimmer	2001	“He could no longer believe that Anne’s soul was in heaven, that her soul had survived her unjustified death. It was then, 13 years after Darwin discovered natural selection, that he gave up Christianity”
Annie's Box Randal Keynes	2001	"After Annie's death, Charles set the Christian faith firmly behind him."
Emma Darwin, Edna Healey	2001	“The death of Annie confirmed Charles’s loss of faith”
Darwin and the Barnacle, Rebecca Stott	2003	“Perhaps he [Darwin] wanted to say what he was beginning to feel himself… that after death there was nothing—no God waiting to scour Annie’s record book…”
Darwin’s Origin of Species, A Biography, Janet Browne	2006	“Annie’s death may have finally tipped Darwin into disbelief”
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, David Quammen	2006	“The death of Annie in 1851, following the death of his father three years ealier, marks an important point in Darwin’s long, quiet disengagement from religious belief and spirituality”
Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World, George Levine	2008	“But the hard experience of Annie’s death certainly had larger implications for his attitude toward religion, as James Moore has argued in his essay on this subject.” “That Anna [sic] died on Shakespeare’s birthday is a coincidence (is “intelligent design” an option?) of which I wish to take advantage, as I return to Darwin’s comment that Shakespeare had come to nauseate him.”
Rebel Giants, David Contosta	2008	“ For Charles, the death of this beautiful, kind, and beloved child was the last blow to any faith he had in God.”
“Call the Black Horses” from The Darwin Poems by Emily Ballou	2009	"You can safely put God to bed now/the way you can’t your daughter anymore./Tuck the sheets so tight he cannot move/and lock the bedroom door."
On Screen
The Voyage of Charles Darwin, BBC series	1978	Darwin voiceover on religion over funeral scene
The Devil's Chaplain, BBC documentary	1991	Moore stands over Annie's grave proclaiming that it was here that Darwin lost his Christian faith
Darwin's Dangerous Idea, PBS documentary	2001	Darwin family in black attends church, Darwin stays outside; Moore claims Annie's death destroyed Darwin's Christianity; claim repeated on PBS website
Darwin's Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species BBC documentary	2009	Narrator states that after Annie's death "With his own belief in a Christian God already shaken, Darwin now severed his ties with traditional faith"; Moore links Darwin's statements in the Autobiography about the doctrine of damnation to anger at Annie's death. Moore claims links between Annie's death and "face of Nature" statements in Chapter III of Origin of Species, culminating in declaration "she suffered at Easter that others may live"
Did Darwin kill God? BBC Documentary	2009	Conor Cunningham bizarrely claims Annie died from cholera. Nick Spencer claims Annie's death once and for all finishes Darwin's Christian faith.
Creation (movie)	2009	Director's Statement: "The Darwin we meet in CREATION is a young, vibrant father, husband and friend whose mental and physical health gradually buckles under the weight of guilt and grief for a lost child. Ultimately it is the ghost of Annie, his adored 10 year-old daughter who leads him out of darkness and helps him reconnect with his wife and family."
Online
Wikipedia (accessed in 2009)		http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Darwin "With Annie's death Darwin lost all faith in a beneficent God and saw Christianity as futile. "