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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: 6 hits
- … to make out this wonderfully complex case—’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 29 [July 1862] ). The three …
- … the structure of almost every flower’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 8 June [1862] ). I …
- … to wait. ‘It is a very extraordinary book!’, wrote Daniel Oliver on 14 May, and George Bentham …
- … plant, Drosera . As he had at Eastborne in the summer of 1860 (see Correspondence vol. 8), Darwin …
- … a new era in the science’ (A. Gray 1862b, p. 429). Oliver joined in the chorus, telling him: ‘Your …
- … & most promising direction to our studies’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, 14 May 1862 ). Darwin …
Darwin in letters, 1860: Answering critics
Summary
On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species, printing off another 3000 copies to satisfy the demands of an audience that surprised both the publisher and the author. It wasn't long, however, before ‘the…
Matches: 28 hits
- … On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of …
- … in railway stations ( letter to Charles Lyell, 14 January [1860] ). By May, with the work …
- … be nice easy reading.’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 22 May [1860] ). Origin : reactions and …
- … his main argument ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 January [1860] ). Darwin’s magnanimous …
- … utterly smashed’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 July [1860] ). (A chronological list of all the …
- … the only track that leads to physical truth’ (Sedgwick 1860) that most wounded Darwin. Having spent …
- … investigation.—’ ( letter to J. S. Henslow, 8 May [1860] ). Above all else Darwin prided …
- … ample lot of facts.’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 18 February [1860] ). To those who objected that his …
- … as real.’ ( letter to C. J. F. Bunbury, 9 February [1860] ). This helps to explain why Darwin was …
- … progression ( letter to Charles Lyell, 18 [and 19 February 1860] ). To this and Lyell’s many other …
- … than a success ( see letter to J. D. Hooker, 14 February [1860] ). I think geologists …
- … to reasoning.’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 18 May 1860 ). Darwin began to tabulate (and …
- … and five botanists ( see letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 March [1860] ). Others, like François Jules …
- … at it, makes me sick!’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 3 April [1860] ). By the end of 1860, Darwin …
- … those of embryology ( letter to Asa Gray, 10 September [1860] ). Only his theory, he believed, …
- … of species ( see letter from T. H. Huxley, 6 August 1860 ). But Baer in fact eventually opposed …
- … other animals’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 10 January [1860] )— he and others were well aware that …
- … after 4 hours battle’ (letter from J. D. Hooker, 2 July 1860). Other correspondents informed Darwin …
- … thing for subject.—’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 July [1860] ). Further details of the meeting, …
- … theological reform tract Essays and reviews in January 1860 as to that of Origin itself. …
- … ( letter from J. S. Henslow to J. D. Hooker, 10 May 1860 ). What worried Darwin most about such …
- … support altogether (letters to Charles Lyell, 1 June [1860] and 11 August [1860] ). As …
- … view the subject’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 15 February [1860] ); later he became ‘fairly sick’ …
- … of his geological argument, he wrote to Lyell on 6 June [1860] : 'I am beginning to despair …
- … Darwin was not, however, entirely preoccupied in 1860 with his critics and the reception of Origin …
- … only of Hooker but also of a newly appointed Kew botanist, Daniel Oliver; his old friend and …
- … selection. As the letters between Darwin, Hooker, and Oliver indicate, the novelty of this approach …
- … (letters to Charles Lyell, 24 November [1860] , and to Daniel Oliver, 20 October [1860] ). …
Insectivorous Plants
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work with insectivorous plants in the mid 1860s, though his findings would not be published until 1875. In his autobiography Darwin reflected on the delay that…
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: 4 hits
- … himself as ‘a broken-down brother-naturalist’, sent to Daniel Oliver, keeper of the herbarium at the …
- … to J. D. Hooker, 2 June [1864] ). When Darwin asked Oliver whether the tendrils of …
- … than modified branches or leaves as most botanists thought, Oliver initially expressed reservations. …
- … routinists regard in the light of axioms’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, [17 March 1864] ). Though …
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…
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: 6 hits
- … vol. 8, letter to Charles Lyell, 10 January [1860] ). In the same letter he reminded Lyell of …
- … who was already ill-disposed towards Owen following his 1860 review of Origin , wrote to Falconer …
- … leaves, asking the professional botanists Gray, Hooker, and Daniel Oliver for references on …
- … the family, to explaining the phenomenon ( see letter from Daniel Oliver, 17 February 1863 , …
- … exercise Darwin was Huxley’s assertion, first made in his 1860 review of Origin , that in order …
- … and Viola species, had interested Darwin since 1860; it continued to capture his attention ( …
Orchids
Summary
Why Orchids? Darwin wrote in his Autobiography, ‘During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my…
Matches: 11 hits
- … on species theory. He noted in his journal on 9 January 1860, ‘Began looking over M.S. for Work on …
- … 1862 ( Orchids ). A letter to Hooker, on 5 June [1860] reveals why orchids might, once …
- … Weekly Intelligence r, in issues for 23 and 30 June 1860. Looking even further afield, Darwin sent …
- … subject of orchids was irresistible; towards the end of June 1860, Darwin approached the botanist …
- … to make such a request. ’ By early July 1860, More had provided fresh specimens, the first …
- … on the fact-gathering stage of his research, but in August 1860, he wrote an ‘abstract’ that related …
- … of this structure in a letter to More on 5 August 1860, ‘ Dr. H. is considerably mistaken about the …
- … that of a more traditional botanist like Hooker. Writing to Daniel Oliver in October 1860, Darwin …
- … resolution was short-lived, for, by the end of October 1860, with Henrietta having suffered a …
- … sexes in Catasetum and Myanthus . In a letter to Daniel Oliver in December 1861, Darwin …
- … Sales were slow, but the book had a positive reception. Daniel Oliver, who was professor of botany …
Insectivorous plants
Summary
Darwin’s work on insectivorous plants began by accident. While on holiday in the summer of 1860, staying with his wife’s relatives in Hartfield, Sussex, he went for long walks on the heathland and became curious about the large number of insects caught by…
Matches: 5 hits
- … plants began by accident. While on holiday in the summer of 1860, staying with his wife’s relatives …
- … Darwin roped in Hooker’s assistant at Kew Gardens, Daniel Oliver, to help him with his observations, …
- … the two men exchanging over twenty letters in the autumn of 1860 alone. Darwin started by asking …
- … without numerous & carefully repeated experiments ’. Oliver observed related plants in the …
- … reaction of Drosera leaves to various substances. When Oliver got a reaction from gum which …
Darwin’s Photographic Portraits
Summary
Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the study of Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, but can be witnessed in his many photographic portraits and in the extensive portrait correspondence that…
Matches: 5 hits
- … a photograph as a token of esteem by a colleague, such as Daniel Oliver at Kew, the image became …
- … to the copy he had sent five years previously in his 1860 letter to Hooker , Darwin exclaimed …
- … matter, and he was far more satisfied with the results. In 1860-61 and again in 1864 Charles Darwin …
- … most transformative photographs of Darwin.The years between 1860 and 1864 took a physical and …
- … his ‘venerable beard’! Images: Charles Darwin, 1860-61, William Darwin, Courtesy of Harvard …
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: 6 hits
- … species would give rise to fertile progeny (T. H. Huxley 1860, pp.562-5). He later claimed, in a …
- … have ever been produced from a common stock’ (T. H. Huxley 1860, p. 198). In Origin , p. 272, …
- … first noticed differences in the flowers of cowslips in May 1860. ‘ I have this morning been …
- … it will be. ’ Darwin was surprised again in December 1860, as he reported to Hooker, ‘ the other …
- … meaning of the dimorphism ’. Two months later, he told Daniel Oliver, ‘ I am surprised to find …
- … he had been working on since late July 1862. He told Oliver that, ‘ as each form has two sets of …
From morphology to movement: observation and experiment
Summary
Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, as exemplified by his observations on geology, or a microscopic one, as shown by his early work on the eggs and larvae of tiny bryozoans, Darwin was…
Matches: 3 hits
- … In a letter to Gardeners’ Chronicle in June 1860 , he asked readers living in other parts of …
- … approach, and after hearing about Australian orchids from Daniel Oliver, he wrote ‘ I cannot quite …
- … plant Drosera rotundifolia (common sundew) in 1860, around the same time he began work on orchid …
Darwin’s reading notebooks
Summary
In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…
Matches: 20 hits
- … 1851; the second (DAR 128) continues the list from 1852 to 1860, when, except for a few odd entries, …
- … Dispatches [Wellesley 1834–9] Carlyles Oliver Cromwell [Carlyle 1845] (read) Keppells( …
- … 1837–8]— read aloud April 12 th . Carlyles Oliver Cromwell [Carlyle 1845] May 5. Ray …
- … [Macclintock 1859] [DAR *128: 153] 1860 Owen in Trans. Zoolog. Soc. Vol …
- … of a Naturalist in Australasia. 1. 1. 0 [G. Bennett 1860] Read 114 Village Bells [Manning] …
- … to end of VI. vol.— [DAR 128: 26] 1860 Quatrefages on Maladies of Silk …
- … . 1 & 2. 1854 & 1855.— [DAR 128: 27] 1860 Friends in Council [Helps …
- … 2 vols. London. *119: 12v. Bennett, George. 1860. Gatherings of a naturalist in …
- … . London. [Other eds.] 119: 13b ——. 1845. Oliver Cromwell’s letters and speeches: with …
- … 142–214. *119: 21v.; 119: 18a Clarke, Edward Daniel. 1810–23. Travels in various …
- … 2 vols. London. *119: 23; 119: 22b ——. 1860. The woman in white . New York and London …
- … . 9 vols. Paris. *128: 169 Defoe, Daniel. 1719. The life and strange surprizing …
- … London. *119: 23, 24; 128: 5 Ekmarck, Carl Daniel. 1781. On the migration of birds. In …
- … G. H. Hodson. London. 128: 25 Hofacker, Johann Daniel. 1828. Ueber die Eigenschaften …
- … Illustrated Library.) London. *128: 157 Johnson, Daniel. 1822. Sketches of field sports …
- … 71: 149.] *128: 173; 128: 18 Samuelson, James. 1860. The honey-bee; its natural history …
- … *119: 4v.; 119: 13a Wilcke, Henricus Christianus Daniel. 1781. On the police of nature. In …
- … feeding, and medical treatment of swine . London. [2d ed. (1860) in Darwin Library.] *119: 22v. …
- … companion) . London. 1848–61. [Nos. from 1855, 1856, and 1860 in Darwin Library.] *128: 153 …
- … series, 1847–51. Fourth series, 1852–9. New series, 1860–. *128: 151 Scientific Memoirs …
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: 4 hits
- … , translated by Heinrich Georg Bronn, had been published in 1860 and 1863 by the firm E. …
- … Darwin and the New York publisher D. Appleton and Co. in 1860. Unfortunately, Appleton had produced …
- … to the famous Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860, where the bishop of Oxford, Samuel …
- … when the young daughter of Hooker’s colleague at Kew, Daniel Oliver, died suddenly. ‘How grieved I …
