From W. E. Darwin 14 April [1864]
Summary
Observations on [length of style and length of filament and stigmas of] Pulmonaria.
| Author: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 14 Apr [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 110: A68–74 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4462 |
From J. V. Carus 5 February 1875
Summary
New [3d] German edition of Descent will soon be out.
Will begin translating Journal of researches, which will be first volume of CD’s collected works.
JVC has proposed bringing out all CD’s botanical papers in one or two volumes.
Errata in Descent enclosed.
| Author: | Julius Victor Carus |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 5 Feb 1875 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 99 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9841 |
From W. E. Darwin 22 March [1864]
Summary
Sends drawings of the pollen from Chinese Primula plants with styles and pistils of different lengths; observations on sizes and condition of their pollen.
| Author: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 22 Mar [1864] |
| Classmark: | DAR 108: 86–7, 175–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4434 |
From Francis Darwin [28 October 1877?]
Summary
FD has sent proofs; nutating of Ricinus; Horace Darwin and the wormograph.
| Author: | Francis Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [28 Oct 1877?] |
| Classmark: | DAR 274.1: 45 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11302F |
From G. A. Gaskell 13 November 1878
Summary
Discusses three "laws of race preservation" which are evolving: (1) natural selection; (2) the sociological law of sympathetic selection, or indiscriminate survival; (3) moral law – social selection or the "Birth of the Fittest".
| Author: | George Arthur Gaskell |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 Nov 1878 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 12 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11744 |
From A. R. Wallace 23 July 1877
Summary
Thanks CD for Forms of flowers.
Further objections to "voluntary" sexual selection. Believes that he can explain all the phenomena of sexual ornaments and colours by laws of development aided by simple natural selection.
Excited by Thomas Belt’s "oceanic glacier river-damming" hypothesis. The last paper, "Glacial period in the Southern Hemisphere" in the Quarterly Journal of Science is particularly fine.
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 23 July 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 106: B134–5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11067 |
From Wilhelm Breitenbach 11 September 1876
Summary
His research on Orchis maculata.
Discusses effect of disuse of anthers in Salvia officinalis.
Pleased CD can use his observations on Primula elatior.
| Author: | Wilhelm Breitenbach |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 11 Sept 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 292 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10595 |
From Hugo de Vries 15 October 1881
Summary
Thanks for Earthworms.
HdeV is studying the causes of variation in plants and is very interested in Pangenesis.
| Author: | Hugo de Vries |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 Oct 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 180: 26 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13402 |
From J. W. Judd 26 June 1878
Summary
Sends a paper by Melchior Neumayr [‘Über unvermittelt auftretende Cephalopodentypen’, Jahrb. K.-K. Geol. Reichsanst. 28 (1878): 37–80].
Plans to marry soon.
Next year he will begin a practical course in geology to supplement his lectures.
| Author: | John Wesley Judd |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 June 1878 |
| Classmark: | DAR 168: 84 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11569 |
From George Henslow [after 19 April 1866]
Summary
Thanks for explanation on relative fertility of homostyled and heterostyled crosses in Primula. Sends an intermediate form with small stamens, but stigma only slightly above stamens.
Election as Botanical Lecturer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.
| Author: | George Henslow |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [after 19 Apr 1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 160 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5044 |
From Fritz Müller 9 September 1868
Summary
Will repeat CD’s experiments on dimorphic and trimorphic plants.
Auditory organs of Orthoptera; stridulation in lamellicorn beetles.
| Author: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Sept 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 82: A92, Möller ed. 1915–21, 2: 146–7. |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6359 |
From Ernst Krause 4 October 1880
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.
| Author: | Ernst Ludwig (Ernst) Krause |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Oct 1880 |
| Classmark: | DAR 169: 109 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12737 |
From Raphael Meldola 24 November 1880
Summary
Wants information on Fritz Müller’s papers bearing on Weismann’s work.
| Author: | Raphael Meldola |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 24 Nov 1880 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 140 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12850 |
From T. H. Huxley 3 April 1876
Summary
A Dr Sarazin offers services as translator.
Will read CD’s letter about Robert Swinhoe to Royal Society Council and see what can be done for him.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Apr 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 345 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10438 |
From Ernst Krause 11 March 1877
Summary
As editor of the new journal, Kosmos, thanks CD for the permission he has granted Ernst Haeckel to publish with CD’s approval.
Cites his long support for evolution as exemplified by his book [Die botanische Systematik in ihrem Verhältniss zur Morphologie (1866)].
CD has many German supporters.
| Author: | Ernst Ludwig (Ernst) Krause |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 11 Mar 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 169: 105 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10888 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1877 , and F. Darwin 1875a , 1876a , 1876b , and 1877a . Die botanische Systematik in ihrem Verhältniss zur Morphologie (Botanical systematics in relation to morphology; Krause 1866 ). Under the pseudonym Carus Sterne, Krause had published Werden und Vergehen: eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Naturganzen in gemeinverständlicher Fassung (Genesis and decline: a history of the whole of nature …
From Mary Treat 3 April 1876
Summary
Encloses Pinguicula specimens.
Believes she has found a new species of water-lily.
| Author: | Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Davis; Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Treat |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Apr 1876 |
| Classmark: | DAR 178: 178 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10439 |
From G. H. Darwin 19 November 1880
Summary
Comments on CD’s book [Movement in plants].
Continues with his experiments with ripple-marks.
Is in despair about his astronomy.
| Author: | George Howard Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 19 Nov 1880 |
| Classmark: | DAR 210.2: 87 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12828 |
From A. R. Wallace 3 September 1877
Summary
Sexual selection, he thinks, must be left to others to settle. "Conscious" will be substituted for "voluntary" selection. Sound- and scent-producing organs attributed to "natural", not "conscious", selection.
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Sept 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 106: B136–7 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11125 |
Matches: 1 hit
From G. H. Darwin [before 9 May 1878]
Summary
Recounts some figures relating deaf-mutism and consanguineous marriages.
GHD has failed to be elected to the Royal Society.
| Author: | George Howard Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 9 May 1878] |
| Classmark: | DAR 210.2: 66 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11498 |
From Nevil Story-Maskelyne 26 December 1875
Summary
He is proposing [John Wesley] Judd for FRS and asks for CD’s support.
| Author: | Mervyn Herbert Nevil (Nevil) Story; Mervyn Herbert Nevil (Nevil) Story-Maskelyne |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 Dec 1875 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 262 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10327 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1877): 210). CD recommended Judd from general as opposed to personal knowledge (The Royal Society archive GB 117, EC/1877/09). Thereza Mary Story-Maskelyne had sent CD observations on a canary and siskin that attacked primrose and cowslip flowers; he used this information in a letter he sent to Nature …
| letter | (75) |
| Müller, Fritz | (6) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (5) |
| Romanes, G. J. | (4) |
| Darwin, Francis | (3) |
| Darwin, G. H. | (3) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (75) |
| Müller, Fritz | (6) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (5) |
| Romanes, G. J. | (4) |
| Darwin, Francis | (3) |
Darwin in letters, 1877: Flowers and honours
Summary
Ever since the publication of Expression, Darwin’s research had centred firmly on botany. The year 1877 was no exception. The spring and early summer were spent completing Forms of flowers, his fifth book on a botanical topic. He then turned to the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the …
Photograph album of German and Austrian scientists
Summary
The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil Rade, and contained 165 portraits of German and Austrian scientists. The work was lavishly produced and bound in blue velvet with metal embossing. Its ornate…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The album was sent to Darwin to mark his birthday on 12 February 1877 by the civil servant Emil …
Cross and self fertilisation
Summary
The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, published on 10 November 1876, was the result of a decade-long project to provide evidence for Darwin’s belief that ‘‘Nature thus tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom , published on 10 November …
Suggested reading
Summary
Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron: A practical manual for young wives, (London, 1846). Anon., The English gentlewoman: A practical manual for young ladies on their entrance to society, (Third edition, London, 1846). Becker, L. E.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron : A practical manual for …
Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …
Charles Harrison Blackley
Summary
You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 million people in the UK who suffer from hay fever, you are indebted to him. For it was he who identified pollen as the cause of the allergy. Darwin was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … You may not have heard of Charles Harrison Blackley (1820–1900), but if you are one of the 15 …
German poems presented to Darwin
Summary
Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a photograph album sent as a birthday gift to Charles Darwin by his German and Austrian admirers (see letter from From Emil Rade, [before 16] February 1877). The poems were…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a …
Darwin on race and gender
Summary
Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In Descent of man, he tried to explain the origin of human races, and many of the differences between the sexes, with a single theory: sexual selection. Sexual…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In …
Movement in Plants
Summary
The power of movement in plants, published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical work that Darwin wrote. It was the only work in which the assistance of one of his children, Francis Darwin, is mentioned on the title page. The research for this…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The power of movement in plants , published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The following extracts and selected letters explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual …
Dipsacus and Drosera: Frank’s favourite carnivores
Summary
In Autumn of 1875, Francis Darwin was busy researching aggregation in the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (F. Darwin 1876). This phenomenon occurs when coloured particles within either protoplasm or the fluid in the cell vacuole (the cell sap) cluster…
Matches: 1 hits
- … By John Schaefer, Harvard University* Charles Darwin’s enthusiasm for carnivorous …
1.14 William Richmond, oil
Summary
< Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, celebrated his honorary degree of LL.D (Doctor in Laws), awarded by Cambridge University in 1877. Darwin’s return to his alma mater for the presentation ceremony…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, …
Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …
Plant or animal? (Or: Don’t try this at home!)
Summary
Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in particular, his real passion was something even more ambitious: to show that there are no hard-and-fast boundaries between animals and plants. In 1875 Darwin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin is famous for showing that humans are just another animal, but, in his later years in …
Darwin as mentor
Summary
Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both sexes. Selected letters Letter 2234 - Darwin to Unidentified, [5 March 1858] Darwin advises that Professor C. P. Smyth’s observations are not…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both …
Darwin on human evolution
Summary
'I hear that Ladies think it delightful reading, but that it does not do to talk about it, which no doubt promotes the sale.' For the first time online you can now read the full texts of nearly 800 letters Darwin wrote and received during 1871,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I shall be well abused, for as my son Frank says: "you treat man in such a bare-faced manner." …
The origin of language
Summary
Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of his wide-ranging speculations about the transmutation of species. In his private notebooks, he reflected on the communicative powers of animals, their…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin started thinking about the origin of language in the late 1830s. The subject formed part of …
Forms of flowers
Summary
Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, published in 1877, investigated the structural differences in the sexual organs of flowers of the same species. It drew on and expanded five articles Darwin had published on the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species , published in 1877, …
Darwin in letters, 1879: Tracing roots
Summary
Darwin spent a considerable part of 1879 in the eighteenth century. His journey back in time started when he decided to publish a biographical account of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin to accompany a translation of an essay on Erasmus’s evolutionary ideas…
Matches: 1 hits
- … There are summaries of all Darwin's letters from the year 1879 on this website. The full texts of …
Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …
