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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: 16 hits

  • At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of  The variation
  • that he wasunwell & must write briefly’ ( letter to John Scott, 31 May [1863] ), and in a
  • persevered with his work on Variation until 20 July, his letter-writing dwindled considerably. The
  • of man and his history' The first five months of 1863 contain the bulk of the
  • fromsome Quadrumanum animal’, as he put it in a letter to J. D. Hooker of 24[–5] February [1863] …
  • … ‘I declare I never in my life read anything grander’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 26 [February 1863] …
  • than  Origin had (see  Correspondence  vol. 8, letter to Charles Lyell, 10 January [1860] ). …
  • origins was further increased by the discovery in March 1863 of the Moulin-Quignon jaw, the first
  • bear ( see letter from Jacques Boucher de Perthes, 23 June 1863 ). Although English experts
  • were himself, Hooker, Huxley, Alfred Russel Wallace, and John Lubbock. Honours abroad
  • of the Royal Society ( see letter from Edward Sabine to John Phillips, 12 November 1863 ). …
  • year with the Hertfordshire nurseryman Thomas Rivers. John Scott Darwin had found a
  • of botanical subjects, the crossing experiments that Scott had begun on the primrose family after
  • correspondence in 1863. Darwin eventually communicated Scotts  Primula  work to the Linnean
  • the results of which were published in 1868 ( see letter to John Scott, 25 and 28 May [1863] ). …
  • hoped would counteract Huxleys criticism ( letter from John Scott, 23 July [1863] ). Darwin

Darwin in letters, 1865: Delays and disappointments

Summary

The year was marked by three deaths of personal significance to Darwin: Hugh Falconer, a friend and supporter; Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle; and William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and father of Darwin’s friend…

Matches: 23 hits

  • … on a paper on  Verbascum (mullein) by CD’s protégé, John Scott, who was now working in India. …
  • … also a serious dispute between two of Darwin’s friends, John Lubbock and Charles Lyell . These …
  • … The death of Hugh Falconer Darwin’s first letter to Hooker of 1865 suggests that the family …
  • … having all the Boys at home: they make the house jolly’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 7 January [1865] …
  • … had failed to include among the grounds of the award ( see letter from Hugh Falconer to Erasmus …
  • … his letters to Darwin, and Darwin responded warmly: ‘Your letter is by far the grandest eulogium …
  • … may well rest content that I have not laboured in vain’ ( letter to Hugh Falconer, 6 January [1865] …
  • … always a most kind friend to me. So the world goes.—’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 2 February [1865] …
  • … for our griefs & pains: these alone are unalloyed’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 3 February 1865 …
  • … gas.— Sic transit gloria mundi, with a vengeance’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 9 February [1865] ). …
  • … added, ‘I know it is folly & nonsense to try anyone’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 7 January [1865] …
  • … Appendix II). In May, he invited a new doctor, John Chapman, to Down and began a course of Chapman’s …
  • … Variation . In March Darwin wrote to his publisher, John Murray, ‘Of present book I have 7 …
  • … forward, except the last & concluding one’ ( letter to John Murray, 31 March [1865] ). In …
  • … will be ready for the press in the autumn’ ( letter to John Murray, 4 April [1865] ). In early …
  • … ‘I am never idle when I can do anything’ ( letter to John Murray, 2 June [1865] ). It was not …
  • … questions and suggesting new lines of research. John Scott A similar, though not so …
  • … effort took place in the beginning of the year when John Scott, a protégé of Darwin’s whom Darwin …
  • … his experiments on  Verbascum.  Darwin had suggested to Scott in 1862, when Scott was working at …
  • … (see  Correspondence  vol. 10, letter to John Scott, 19 November [1862] ). Darwin had already …
  • … 9, letter to J. D. Hooker, 28 September [1861] ). Scott had evidently started his crossing …
  • … vol. 11, letter from J. D. Hooker, 10 June 1863 ). However, probably the most enthusiastic …
  • … that Lyell in his  Antiquity of man , published in 1863, had made unacknowledged use of Lubbock’s …

Darwin in letters, 1862: A multiplicity of experiments

Summary

1862 was a particularly productive year for Darwin. This was not only the case in his published output (two botanical papers and a book on the pollination mechanisms of orchids), but more particularly in the extent and breadth of the botanical experiments…

Matches: 24 hits

  • … but really I do think you have a good right to be so’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 and] 20 …
  • … species. Darwin attempted to dissuade him from this view ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 14 [January 1862 …
  • … partially sterile together. He failed. Huxley replied ( letter from T. H. Huxley, 20 January 1862 …
  • … and pronounced them ‘simply perfect’, but continued ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 18 December [1862] ) …
  • … resigned to their difference of opinion, but complained ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 28 December [1862 …
  • … of sterility between varieties of  Verbascum . When John Scott, foreman of the propagating …
  • … letters, Darwin, impressed, gave him the commission ( see letter to John Scott, 11 December [1862] …
  • … Towards the end of the year, he wrote to Hooker ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 12 [December 1862] ): …
  • … and added, ‘new cases are tumbling in almost daily’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 22 January [1862] ). In …
  • … hopeful, became increasingly frustrated, telling Hooker ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 7 March [1862] ) …
  • … on the problem: ‘the labour is great’, he told Gray ( letter to Asa Gray, 10–20 June [1862] ), ‘I …
  • … resulted from his ‘ enormous  labour over them’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 14 [October 1862] ; …
  • … Oliver: ‘I can see at least 3 classes of dimorphism’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 12 [April 1862] ), …
  • … to publish on  Linum  ‘at once’ ( letter to John Scott, 11 December [1862] ), writing up his …
  • … buy it. When he submitted the manuscript to his publisher, John Murray, he boasted: ‘I can say with …
  • … in the least , whether the Book will sell’ ( letter to John Murray, 9 [February 1862] ). To his …
  • … paper for the  Natural History Review  ( see letter to John Lubbock, 16 [December 1862] ). Aware …
  • … part of his popular exposition of Darwin’s theory (Rolle 1863; see letter to Friedrich Rolle, 17 …
  • … of the old  Beagle  crew, Bartholomew James Sulivan, John Clements Wickham, and Arthur Mellersh, …
  • … of this, he prescribed strict conditions for a meeting with John Lubbock: ‘if you could … let me go …
  • … at 9 o clock I do not think it would hurt me’ ( letter to John Lubbock, 23 October [1862] ). …
  • … on botany. Even at the start of their correspondence he told John Scott: ‘Botany is a new subject to …
  • … odds & ends of botany & you know far more’ ( letter to John Scott, 19 November [1862] ). …
  • … Lyell, 14 October [1862] ). Moreover, when the physicist John Tyndall, fresh from a summer in the …

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: 23 hits

  • the long illness that had plagued him since the spring of 1863. Because of poor health, Darwin
  • from that of the five physicians Darwin had consulted in 1863. In a letter of 26[–7] March [1864] …
  • and he received more letters of advice from Jenner. In a letter of 15 December [1864] to the
  • As Darwin explained to his cousin William Darwin Fox in a letter of 30 November [1864] , ‘the
  • leaf, and aerial roots. When his health deteriorated in 1863, he found that he could still continue
  • gradation by which  leaves  produce tendrils’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [8 February 1864] ). …
  • fearfully for it is a leaf climber & therefore sacred’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 2 June [1864] …
  • matters which routinists regard in the light of axioms’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, [17 March 1864
  • long series of changes . . .’ When he told Asa Gray in a letter of 29 October [1864] that he was
  • 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 Darwins
  • plight of another of Darwins fellow orchid-experimenters, John Scott. Their correspondence had been
  • of the orchid  Acropera . Darwin communicated one of Scotts papers on the orchid  Oncidium  to
  • a number of topics for him to work on. Darwin encouraged Scott to publish his results independently, …
  • by a steady stream of suggestions and support from Darwin, Scott produced a paper on the Primulaceae
  • 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
  • supporton the grounds of science’ ( letter to John Scott, 9 April 1864 ), but Scott declined
  • scientific debate. He had begun taking the journal in April 1863 and was an enthusiastic subscriber. …
  • 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 ). …
  • and their predecessors had continued to grow following the 1863 publication of Huxleys  Evidence
  • failure to win the award in the two preceding years. An 1863 letter from the president of the Royal

Natural Science and Femininity

Summary

Discussion Questions|Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine thoughts, habits and feelings, male naturalists like Darwin inhabited an uncertain gendered identity. Working from the private domestic comfort of their homes and exercising…

Matches: 17 hits

  • … Britain? Letters Letter 109 - Wedgwood, J. to Darwin, …
  • … pursuit of real, professional work on his return. Letter 158 - Darwin to Darwin, R. W., …
  • … colour and “beauty” of tropical vegetation. Letter 542 - Darwin to Wedgwood, C. S., [27 …
  • … meals, family time and walks into town with Emma. Letter 555 - Darwin to FitzRoy, R., …
  • … ‘ A Biographical Sketch of an Infant ’. Letter 2781 - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [3 May …
  • … them in the north-facing borders of his garden. Letter 2864 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., …
  • … and “never saw anything so beautiful”. Letter 4230 - Darwin to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [2 …
  • … linked with his domestic family life. Letter 4377 - Haeckel, E. P. A. to Darwin, [2 …
  • … at least provide Darwin with aesthetic pleasure. Letter 4436 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., …
  • … he has moved one or two of them into his bedroom. Letter 4469 - Hooker, J. D. to Darwin …
  • … before expecting to dedicate his life to science. Letter 4472 - Hooker, J. D. to Darwin …
  • … discusses the scientific career of botanist and gardener John Scott . Differentiating between …
  • … duty to the public to contribute more than this. Letter 6044 - Darwin to Darwin, G. H., …
  • … and influence to help shape his sons’ fortunes. Letter 6046 - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, …
  • … from the comfort of his “ pretty garden ”. Letter 6139 - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [22 …
  • … moths all of which were conducted in his home. Letter 6453 - Langton, E. to Wedgwood, S …
  • … attracted to dark spots on the bedroom wallpaper. Letter 10821 - Graham C. C. to Darwin …

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: 13 hits

  • of both sexes. Selected letters Letter 2234 - Darwin to Unidentified, [5
  • sweeping conclusions on insufficient grounds. Letter 3934 - Darwin to Scott, J., [21
  • how to make the material worthy of publication. Letter 4185 - Darwin to Scott, J., [25
  • indefatigable worker you are!”. Letter 7605 - Darwin to Darwin, H. E., [20 March
  • memorialin memory of the book. Letter 8140 - Darwin to Darwin, W. E., [3
  • how he made so many observations without aid. Letter 8146 - Darwin to Treat, M., [5
  • … “in some well-known scientific journal”. Letter 8171 - Darwin to Wedgwood, L., [21
  • that Lucy is worth her weight in gold. Letter 9005b - Darwin to Treat, M., [12
  • flies until he had repeated the experiment. Letter 9580 - Darwin to Darwin, G. H. D., …
  • should not yet be submitted to the publisher. Letter 9613 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., …
  • and thinks that it ought to be published. Letter 10523 - Darwin to Treat, M., [1 June
  • in the pursuit of heradmirable work”. Letter 11096 - Darwin to Romanes, G. J., [9
  • her manuscript to Nature for publication. Letter 13414 - Darwin to Harrison, L., …

Scientific Networks

Summary

Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…

Matches: 20 hits

  • … and colonial authorities. In the nineteenth-century, letter writing was one of the most important …
  • … in times of uncertainty, controversy, or personal loss. Letter writing was not only a means of …
  • … botanist Asa Gray. Darwin and Hooker Letter 714 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D. …
  • … and he is curious about Hooker’s thoughts. Letter 729 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., …
  • … to Hooker “it is like confessing a murder”. Letter 736 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D. …
  • … wide-ranging genera. Darwin and Gray Letter 1674 — Darwin, C. R. to Gray, …
  • … and asks him to append the ranges of the species. Letter 1685 — Gray, Asa to Darwin, C. …
  • … and relationships of alpine flora in the USA. Letter 2125 — Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa, …
  • … Mentors Darwin's close relationship with John Stevens Henslow, the professor of botany …
  • … he mentored. The first is between Darwin and his neighbour, John Lubbock and the second is between …
  • Letter 1585 — Darwin, C. R. to Lubbock, John, [Sept 1854] Darwin sends Lubbock a beetle he …
  • Letter 1720 — Darwin, C. R. to Lubbock, John, 19 [July 1855] Darwin congratulates Lubbock on …
  • Letter 1979 — Darwin, C. R. to Lubbock, John, 27 Oct [1856] Darwin provides detailed …
  • … expert William Bernard Tegetmeier and the Scottish gardener John Scott, illustrate how the rigid …
  • … him to publish in his journal. The debate about John Scott Letter 3800 — …
  • … found in flowers did not become fertilised when pollinated. Scott suggests Acropera has both …
  • … in the anthers. Letter 4463 — Scott, John to Darwin, C. R., 14 Apr [1864] Scott …
  • Letter 4170 — Becker, Lydia to Darwin, C. R., 18 May 1863 This is a very formal letter
  • Letter 4258 — Becker, Lydia to Darwin, C. R., 31 July [1863] Becker has found seeds produced …
  • Letter 4260a — Darwin, C. R. to Becker, L. E., 2 Aug [1863] Darwin thanks Lydia Becker for …

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: 27 hits

  • … Observers Women: Letter 1194 - Darwin to Whitby, M. A. T., [12 August …
  • … silkworm breeds, or peculiarities in inheritance. Letter 3787 - Darwin, H. E. to …
  • … observations of cats’ instinctive behaviour. Letter 4258 - Becker, L. E. to Darwin, …
  • … to artificially fertilise plants in her garden. Letter 4523 - Wedgwood, L. C. to …
  • … be made on seeds of Pulmonaria officinalis . Letter 5745 - Barber, M. E. to …
  • … Expression from her home in South Africa. Letter 6736 - Gray, A. & J. L …
  • … Expression during a trip to Egypt. Letter 7223 - Darwin to Wedgwood, L. C., …
  • … expression of emotion in her pet dog and birds. Letter 5817 - Darwin to Huxley, T. …
  • … is making similar observations for him. Letter 6535 - Vaughan Williams , M. S. …
  • … of a crying baby to Darwin's daughter, Henrietta. Letter 7179 - Wedgwood, …
  • … briefly on her ongoing observations of wormholes. Letter 8611 - Cupples, A. J. …
  • … expression of emotion in dogs with Emma Darwin. Letter 8676 - Treat, M. to Darwin, …
  • … birds, insects or plants on Darwin’s behalf. Letter 8683 - Roberts, D. to …
  • … of an angry pig and her niece’s ears. Letter 8701 - Lubbock, E. F . to Darwin, …
  • Letter 4242 - Hildebrand, F. H. G. to Darwin, [16 July 1863] Hildebrand writes to …
  • … in a marble tablet”. Letter 6815 - Scott, J. to Darwin, [2 July 1869] John
  • Letter 4235 - Becker, L. E. to Darwin, [8 July 1863] Lydia Becker sends Darwin a …
  • Letter 4139  - Darwin, W. E. to Darwin, [4 May 1863] William sends the results of a …
  • Letter 4258 - Becker, L. E. to Darwin, [31 July 1863] Lydia Becker details her …
  • … 4233  - Tegetmeier, W. B. to Darwin, [29 June - 7 July 1863] Tegetmeier updates Darwin …
  • …  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] John Weir describes experiments he is undertaking …
  • … J., [5 April 1859] Darwin asks his publisher, John Murray, to forward a manuscript copy of …
  • … 3896 - Darwin to Huxley, T. H, [before 25 February 1863] Darwin offers the results of …
  • Letter 4010 - Huxley, T. H. to Darwin, [25 February 1863] Huxley praises Henrietta’s …
  • Letter 4038 - Darwin to Lyell, C., [12-13 March 1863] Darwin secretly passes on …
  • … editorial criticism of a paper written by English naturalist John Lubbock. In addition to offering …
  • …  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] John Weir describes experiments he is undertaking …

Evolution: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1860-1870

Summary

This selection of Charles Darwin’s letters includes correspondence with his friends and scientific colleagues around the world; letters by the critics who tried to stamp out his ideas, and by admirers who helped them to spread. It takes up the story of…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … to confide in his closest friends and associates by letter. The letters in this volume speak …
  • … derivation of Species … Darwin to Charles Lyell, 1863. Permit me again to …
  • … soon as I am fairly settled & succeeding in India. John Scott to Darwin, 1864. …

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: 7 hits

  • … was read at a meeting of the Linnean Society on 3 February 1863. Forms of flowers …
  • … ‘They did not believe in my results’ In July 1863, when Lythrum was flowering, Darwin …
  • … results of similar work carried out by correspondents like John Scott . Scott had been studying …
  • … only produced seedlings of the same form, but in March 1863, Darwin told Scott that with regard to …
  • … (p. 82) and clarified the meaning to Fritz Müller in a letter in September 1866, ‘ What I meant in …
  • … than in the short-styled form ’, Darwin annotated this letter, wondering, ‘Would it be worth while …
  • … to write Forms of flowers . He contacted his publisher John Murray in early April 1877, …

Virginia Isitt: Darwin’s secretary?

Summary

In an undated and incomplete draft letter to a “Miss I.”, Emma Darwin appears to be arranging for Miss I. to come to Down for a trial period as a secretary. When the letter first came to light, no one had heard of the mysterious “Miss I.” and, as far as we…

Matches: 7 hits

  • … I have received from my niece your letter to her (in which you say you wd like to undertake the …
  • … Mr D[arwin]. In an undated and incomplete draft letter to a “Miss I.”, Emma Darwin …
  • … that a formal post was even considered. The letter  (editorial expansions in square …
  • … the evening w. us but I hope you will A second letter in the Darwin Archive–CUL (DAR …
  • … connection. Additionally, he told us that between 1862 and 1863 Miss Isitt had studied for a French …
  • … secretary. The niece that Emma mentions in her draft letter to Miss Isitt was probably Julia …
  • … to further her career, as Darwin had helped the gardener John Scott, but we just don’t know. …