skip to content

Darwin Correspondence Project

Search: contains ""

400 Bad Request

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.


Apache Server at dcp-public.lib.cam.ac.uk Port 443
Search:
in keywords
9 Items

Darwin in letters, 1867: A civilised dispute

Summary

Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work, The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Variation). The importance of Darwin’s network of correspondents becomes vividly apparent in his work on expression in…

Matches: 19 hits

  • …   Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work,  The …
  • … publisher in the final week of 1866. It would take all of 1867 to correct proofs, and just when …
  • … becomes vividly apparent in his work on expression in 1867, as he continued to circulate a list of …
  • … transmutation theory. Three important new correspondents in 1867 were Hermann Müller and Anton Dohrn …
  • … the New Year’s greeting, ‘may you be eupeptic through 1867 & your friends & the world in …
  • … of the size of the two-volume work from his publisher, John Murray, he wrote to Murray on 3 …
  • … a chapter ‘on Man’. After a few days, he wrote back to Murray proposing that some of the more …
  • … is as good as praise for selling a Book’ ( letter to John Murray, 31 January [1867] ). A …
  • … the additional chapter. In a letter written on 8 February [1867] to his close friend, Joseph …
  • … Darwin’s time. The first proof-sheets arrived on 1 March 1867 and the tedious work of correction …
  • … . In a letter to his son William dated 27 [March 1867] , he admitted, ‘I fear the book is by no …
  • … papers with his first letter to Darwin of 15 March 1867 , although he described some of Alexander …
  • … to translate  Variation . Indeed, he told his publisher, John Murray, in a letter of 4 April …
  • … had received other offers, notably one from Vogt in April 1867, to translate the new work. Carus had …
  • … will be published’ ( letter from J. V. Carus, 5 April 1867 ). This hint of uncertainty caused …
  • … to give up the task’ ( letter to Carl Vogt, 12 April [1867] ). Darwin need not have worried …
  • … time it took William Sweetland Dallas to prepare the index. John Murray had engaged Dallas and …
  • … was sure that the colours were protective and suggested that John Jenner Weir might conduct …
  • …  for this month; except on wet days’ ( letter from H. B. Jones, 1 October [1867] ). There is no …

Women as a scientific audience

Summary

Target audience? | Female readership | Reading Variation Darwin's letters, in particular those exchanged with his editors and publisher, reveal a lot about his intended audience. Regardless of whether or not women were deliberately targeted as a…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … chapters of Origin of Species to his publisher, John Murray. He hopes that his views are …
  • … Letter 7312 - Darwin to Darwin, F., [30 August 1867 - 70] Darwin asks his son, …
  • … Letter 5391 - Becker, L. E. to Darwin, [6 February 1867] Lydia Becker thanks Darwin …
  • … Letter 5712 - Dallas, W. S. to Darwin, [8 December 1867] Translator and author …

Women’s scientific participation

Summary

Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…

Matches: 12 hits

  • … Letter 5745 - Barber, M. E. to Darwin, [after February 1867] Mary Barber responds to …
  • … Letter 7223 - Darwin to Wedgwood, L. C., [8 June 1867 - 72] Darwin asks his niece, …
  • … to Darwin, [1873] Ellen Lubbock, wife of naturalist John Lubbock, responds to Darwin’s …
  • … Letter 5602 - Sutton, S. to Darwin, [8 August 1867] Sutton, the keeper of the …
  • … 5705 - Haast, J. F. J. von to Darwin, [4 December 1867] Explorer and geologist Haast …
  • … 6815 - Scott, J. to Darwin, [2 July 1869] John Scott responds to Darwin’s queries …
  • …  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] John Weir describes experiments he is undertaking …
  • … Letter 5585  - Darwin to Darwin, H. E., [26 July 1867] Darwin praises Henrietta’s …
  • … editorial criticism of a paper written by English naturalist John Lubbock. In addition to offering …
  • … Letter 5403  - Darwin to Carus,  J. V.  [17 February 1867] Darwin thanks Carus for his …
  • … 5410  - Darwin to Muller, J. F. T., [22 February 1867] Darwin thanks Muller for …
  • …  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] John Weir describes experiments he is undertaking …

Darwin in letters, 1868: Studying sex

Summary

The quantity of Darwin’s correspondence increased dramatically in 1868 due largely to his ever-widening research on human evolution and sexual selection.Darwin’s theory of sexual selection as applied to human descent led him to investigate aspects of the…

Matches: 17 hits

  • … March 1868, Darwin wrote to the entomologist and accountant John Jenner Weir, ‘If any man wants to …
  • … domestication . Having been advertised by the publisher John Murray as early as 1865, the two …
  • … Darwin had sent the manuscript to the publisher in February 1867, and had spent a good deal of that …
  • … Record. Dallas had begun the work in November 1867 and had expected to complete it in a fortnight. …
  • … increased the amount of work substantially. Darwin asked Murray to intervene, complaining on 9 …
  • … a great loss to the Book’. But Darwin’s angry letter to Murray crossed one from Dallas to himself, …
  • … a cheque to Dallas for £55  s ., and recommended to Murray that Dallas receive additional payment. …
  • … of the book were sold within a month of its release, and Murray made immediate arrangements for a …
  • … profound contempt of me. I feel convinced it is by Owen’. John Edward Gray, a colleague of Richard …
  • … me in the face, but not behind my back’ ( letter to John Murray, 25 February [1868] ). Wallace …
  • … R. Wallace, 24 February [1868] ). The review was in fact by John Robertson, a Scottish journalist …
  • … a letter of thanks to the naturalist and customs offcial John Jenner Weir for a paper on apterous …
  • … depends on the actions of the female’, and of rats, John Bush observed on 30 March that two …
  • … emotional expression. His questionnaire, first sent out in 1867, was circulated to remote parts of …
  • … the whole System is sustained.’ The former Down clergyman, John Brodie Innes, passed easily over …
  • … and joy. Satisfaction in one’s children, Darwin wrote to John Price on 26 November , was ‘the …
  • … poets, and men of science, including Adam Sedgwick, John Stevens Henslow, and William Jackson Hooker …

Darwin in letters,1866: Survival of the fittest

Summary

The year 1866 began well for Charles Darwin, as his health, after several years of illness, was now considerably improved. In February, Darwin received a request from his publisher, John Murray, for a new edition of  Origin. Darwin got the fourth…

Matches: 10 hits

  • … of scientific admirers at Down, among them Robert Caspary, John Traherne Moggridge, and Ernst …
  • … regime led to Darwin’s being teased by his neighbour, John Lubbock, about the prospect of riding to …
  • … with our beagles before the season is over’ ( letter from John Lubbock, 4 August 1866 ). More …
  • … On 21 February Darwin received notification from John Murray that stocks of the third edition of  …
  • … George Henslow, the son of his Cambridge mentor, John Stevens Henslow, stayed for two days in April …
  • … In June, Darwin was visited by the orchid specialist John Traherne Moggridge, whose work on the self …
  • … began work on the new translation (Bronn and Carus trans. 1867), incorporating the revisions Darwin …
  • … out, ‘business would be totally paralysed’. Similarly, John Murray gave as a reason for his decision …
  • … ‘gaieties travelling & War Bulletins’ ( letter from John Murray, 18 July 1866 ). I …
  • … for the criminal prosecution of the colonial governor Edward John Eyre. In his efforts to suppress …

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: 3 hits

  • … results of similar work carried out by correspondents like John Scott . Scott had been studying …
  • … you from publishing on the subject ’. In March 1867, Darwin received a small book from …
  • … to write Forms of flowers . He contacted his publisher John Murray in early April 1877, …

Darwin in letters, 1869: Forward on all fronts

Summary

At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of  Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … Jenkin. Darwin had been very impressed by Jenkin’s 1867 review, which argued that any variation in …
  • … and amphibians, while Roland Trimen in South Africa and John Jenner Weir in London sent more …
  • … on the previous German edition (Bronn and Carus trans. 1867), as well as on the German translation …
  • … and broadening the forums in which Darwinism was discussed. John Murray brought out the first issue …
  • … that to me would have been a pleasing sight’ ( letter to John Murray, [after 18 September 1869] ). …

Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health

Summary

On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’.  Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…

Matches: 12 hits

  • … of a paper by another of his orchid correspondents, John Traherne Moggridge, who in June sent him …
  • … of insect pollinators in 1864 and following years. John Scott again Much of Darwin’s …
  • … plight of another of Darwin’s fellow orchid-experimenters, John Scott. Their correspondence had been …
  • … five years. Scott felt that his superiors, James McNab and John Hutton Balfour, no longer treated …
  • … indomitable perseverance, and his knowledge’ ( letter to John Scott, 10 June 1864 ). Hooker met …
  • … support ‘on the grounds of science’ ( letter to John Scott, 9 April 1864 ), but Scott declined …
  • … 1864 ). A notably rambling and long letter arrived from John Beck, a Shrewsbury schoolfellow of …
  • … by a merciful deity for the use of humankind ( letter from John Beck, 6 October 1864 ). …
  • … his brother Erasmus told him of a subscription fund for John William Colenso, bishop of Natal, South …
  • … that a Neanderthal race once extended across Europe. John Lubbock mentioned his forthcoming volume …
  • … of the Royal Society, Edward Sabine, to the geologist John Phillips revealed Sabine’s fears that in …
  • … ever so little degree the Council’s award’ ( letter to John Lubbock, 21 December [1864] ). In …

Descent

Summary

There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Variation , and was still writing it at the end of January 1867 after the rest of the first draft …
  • … to ‘ have a say so much ’. In October 1869 John Murray advertised a forthcoming ‘New Work …