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To J. D. Hooker   15 [January 1866]

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

15th

My dear H.

I remember when I lent you Wichura on Hybrids,1 (since returned) talking with you on Verlot’s memoir on variation of plants in French.—

I have lost it & am in despair— Did I lend it you? Let me have one line in answer; but do not hunt for it, if you remember nothing. I must immediately order fresh copy & what is only bad job read the whole again—2 Post going

Yours affect | C. Darwin

Footnotes

1
CD reminded Hooker of his loan of Wichura 1865, a paper on hybrid willows, three times in 1865 (see Correspondence vol. 13, letters to J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865], [29 July 1865], and 22 and 28 [October 1865]). Hooker is likely to have borrowed the work during his visit to Down between 4 and 6 March 1865 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). There is an annotated copy of Wichura 1865 in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 871–3).
2
CD probably needed Bernard Verlot’s Sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement (Verlot 1865) for his work on the fourth edition of Origin and Variation. In a number of chapters of Variation, CD included examples of variability in plants from Verlot 1865. A passage on the production of fertile and sterile forms in varieties of garden stock (Verlot 1865, p. 84) was cited in Origin 4th ed., p. 284, where CD described similar alternation between reproductive and sterile forms of ants. CD previously expressed his high opinion of Verlot 1865 in the letter to Hooker of [29 July 1865] (Correspondence vol. 13). There is an annotated copy of Verlot 1865 in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 817–19).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.

Origin 4th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 4th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1866.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Verlot, Bernard. 1865. Sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement. Paris: J. B. Baillière.

Wichura, Max Ernst. 1865. Die Bastardbefruchtung im Pflanzenreich erläutert an den Bastarden der Weiden. Breslau: E. Morgenstern.

Summary

In despair: has lost his copy of Verlot’s memoir on variations of flowers [Sur la production et la fixation des variétés (1866)]. Has JDH borrowed it?

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4976
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 115: 280
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4976,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4976.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14

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