To H. C. F. Jenkin 30 April [1873]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
April 30th
Dear Sir
I have been much pleased by your kind remembrance of me, shown by your present of your treatise on Electricity & Magnetism.—2 I wish with all my heart that I was more worthy to receive it, but I differ widely from you in being much confined in my studies. Whereas you have written, as I have often said, not only in some respects the best, but the most witty review, which has ever appeared in one branch of natural history, viz on my Origin of Species.3
With my best thanks & respect, I remain Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
[Jenkin, Henry Charles Fleeming.] 1867. The origin of species. North British Review 46: 277–318.
Jenkin, Henry Charles Fleeming. 1873. Electricity and magnetism. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
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.
Summary
HCFJ’s review of the Origin was the wittiest and in some respects the best written.
Thanks him for his Electricity and magnetism [1873].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8304
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 185: 27
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8304,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8304.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21
