Summary

Birthday greetings.

Regrets Butler’s malicious attack.

Summary

Glad to receive the German edition of Erasmus Darwin. Hopes sales will be good. Favourable review has appeared in the United States, in the Nation.

Summary

Insists that EK take the profits from the English edition of Erasmus Darwin. EK’s essay is the valuable part of the book; CD’s is mainly gossip.

Summary

Thanks EK for kind letter.

CD’s date on epitaph is a dreadful mistake. CD often overlooks errata.

Summary

Responds to CD’s offer to pay for subscription to Kosmos.

Comments on his own honorarium for English edition of Erasmus Darwin. Success of German edition.

Summary

Pleased by favourable English newspaper reviews of Erasmus Darwin. Charles Reinwald has not yet said whether he wants to use annotations intended for German readers.

Summary

Would like to reply to Samuel Butler’s Unconscious memory [1880] in Kosmos.

Summary

Regrets delay of photographs [for German edition of Erasmus Darwin].

Summary

Agrees not to reply to Butler.

Summary

CD advises EK on his proposed letter answering Butler.

Considering the favourable reviews, sale of Erasmus Darwin has been poor.

Summary

Returns [Butler’s] attack, which he forgot to send yesterday.

Summary

No significant reviews of Erasmus Darwin have appeared yet in Germany.

Sends response from a theological opponent.

Summary

The reviews of Erasmus Darwin are mainly favourable.

Summary

Thinks CD has no need to reply to Samuel Butler’s hostile article [in the Athenæum]. Offers to reply himself.

Summary

Replies to EK’s queries about German translation of CD’s preface to Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

German edition of Erasmus Darwin delayed because Murray has not sent phototypes and galvanographs.

Two of CD’s articles from Nature to appear in April Kosmos ["Sexual colours in butterflies", Collected papers 2: 220–2, Kosmos 7 (1880): 72–4;

"Fertility of hybrids from the Chinese goose", Collected papers 2: 219–20, Kosmos 7 (1880): 77–8].

Moritz Wagner will begin a series criticising natural selection.

Summary

What are functions of "yeomen of the armoury" on p. 1? Who is "old Hooker" on p. 34? Needs to explain them in annotations [to Erasmus Darwin].

Summary

Samuel Butler’s fierce attack on CD and EK in Athenæum. CD’s sentence saying that EK had altered his Kosmos article was accidentally omitted from second proofs. Butler insinuates that EK’s attack on his book was suggested by CD or interpolated by him in EK’s text.

Summary

Has sent 2d ed. of his book, Werden und Vergehen [1880]. Notes that book was attacked in Prussian House of Deputies by ultramontane critics of Hermann Müller who had recommended it to his pupils.

Summary

Thanks EK for two articles about Erasmus Darwin.

Does not think it right that he should receive Kosmos free. Asks for a bill for subscription.

Has not heard from J. Murray if there is any profit on Erasmus Darwin, but "vehementer dubito".