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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Hyacinth Hooker   10 October [1880]

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Oct 10th

My dear Lady Hooker

I am very much obliged for your kind present of the Bananas.—1 The orange-brown ones are the most splendid, aristocratic specimens, I have ever seen.

Believe me | yours truly obliged | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

CD enjoyed eating bananas and regularly received samples of the varieties grown at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as gifts from Hyacinth and Joseph Dalton Hooker (see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to Hyacinth Hooker, [18 November 1877]). At this time, bananas were rare and expensive (Endersby 2007, pp. 170–1).

Bibliography

Endersby, Jim. 2007. A guinea pig’s history of biology: the plants and animals who taught us the facts of life. London: William Heinemann.

Summary

Thanks for the bananas.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12750
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Hyacinth Symonds/Hyacinth Jardine/Hyacinth Hooker
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Christie’s (dealers) (8 June 2005, lot 56)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12750,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12750.xml

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