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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Hermann Kindt   22 November 1865

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

22. Nov. 1865.

Dear Sir

Absence from home & illness have prevented me sooner answering your letter.1

The imitation of my handwriting is I think very good, but perhaps a shade too free.

In the letter press I observe two mis-prints than for then & Monography for Monograph2   As far as I know your account of Dr Darwin is quite correct, but I cannot be answerable for any of the dates. I enclose three letters for you to use any of them you like.3 When done with, please to return them to

“Miss Meteyard

Wild Wood

North End

Hampstead N.”

as Miss M. is using them in her Life of Wedgwood & his son.4

Believe me dear Sir | yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

P.S. I wish I could offer you any writing of Josiah Wedgwood but I possess none—

Footnotes

1
See Correspondence vol. 13, letter from Hermann Kindt, 13 November 1865. CD stayed with his brother, Erasmus Alvey Darwin, in London, from 8 to 20 November, and fell ill while he was there (Correspondence vol. 13, Appendix II; Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
2
Kindt had published a facsimile of CD’s handwriting and a brief biography of CD in a journal that he edited, the Autographic Mirror. See Correspondence vol. 13, letter from Hermann Kindt, 23 October 1865.
3
Kindt had asked for a sample of the handwriting of Erasmus Darwin, CD’s paternal grandfather, and enclosed a biographical notice of Erasmus (Correspondence vol. 13, letter from Hermann Kindt, 13 November 1865). One of the letters was reproduced in the Autographic Mirror 4 (1866): no. 70 (see Correspondence vol. 13, letter from Hermann Kindt, 24 November 1865).
4
Eliza Meteyard was writing a biography of CD’s maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood I (Meteyard 1865–6); see Correspondence vol. 13, letter to Eliza Meteyard, 16 November [1865]. She was also planning a work on Josiah’s son Thomas Wedgwood, published as A group of Englishmen (Meteyard 1871). See Correspondence vol. 13, letter from Eliza Meteyard, 25 April 1865.

Bibliography

Meteyard, Eliza. 1865–6. The life of Josiah Wedgwood from his private correspondence and family papers … with an introductory sketch of the art of pottery in England. 2 vols. London: Hurst & Blackett.

Meteyard, Eliza. 1871. A group of Englishmen (1795 to 1815), being records of the younger Wedgwoods and their friends, embracing the history of the discovery of photography. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Summary

Comments on the facsimile of his handwriting made by HK, and points out two errors in the letter press.

Encloses three letters written by Erasmus Darwin, and asks HK to return them to Eliza Meteyard.

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4939F,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4939F.xml

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