From Mary Somerville 30 October 1866
Summary
Thanks CD for permission to use illustrations from Orchids in her work [On molecular and microscopic science (1869)].
| Author: | Mary Fairfax; Mary Greig; Mary Somerville |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 30 Oct 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 217 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5259 |
From W. B. Tegetmeier [after 24 January 1866]
Summary
Thanks for the remittance.
Both WBT and Mr Zurhorst will repeat Zurhorst’s experiment to eliminate any chance of error.
Edward Blyth is writing on Indian cattle for the Field [27 (1866): 55–6, 77].
| Author: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [after 24 Jan 1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 178: 70 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4979 |
From Mary Lubbock to H. E. Darwin [8 May 1866 – 31 August 1871]
Summary
Age at which babies first shed tears.
| Author: | Frances Mary (Mary) Turton; Frances Mary (Mary) Lubbock |
| Addressee: | Henrietta Emma Darwin; Henrietta Emma Litchfield |
| Date: | [8 May 1866 – 31 Aug 1871] |
| Classmark: | DAR 170: 19 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5332 |
To the Lords of the Admiralty [2–4 July 1866]
Summary
Petition earnestly requesting that a ship surveying the Strait of Magellan collect fossil bones in the south of Patagonia.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Admiralty |
| Date: | [2–4 July 1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 96: 25–6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5142 |
From A. R. Wallace 4 February 1866
Summary
Looks forward to reading Variation.
Explains how two or more female forms occur in one species through selection. The physiological problem remains of how each produces offspring like the other without intermediates. Is not CD’s case of varieties that will not blend the physiological test of a species needed for "complete proof of the origin of species"?
"Travels" postponed.
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Feb 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 106: B31–2 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4997 |
To A. R. Wallace 5 July [1866]
Summary
CD considers "the survival of the fittest" as alternative term to "Natural Selection". Reflections upon misunderstanding and his own ambiguity.
Health improved; can now work "some hours daily".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Date: | 5 July [1866] |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Add 46434, f.70) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5145 |
To Mary Elizabeth Lyell [19? October 1866]
Summary
Mary Somerville may use diagrams from Orchids [in her Molecular and microscopic science (1869)], but permission should be obtained from John Murray.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Mary Elizabeth Horner; Mary Elizabeth Lyell |
| Date: | [19? Oct 1866] |
| Classmark: | Bodleian Libraries, Oxford (Dep. c. 370, folder MSD-1: on loan from Somerville College, Oxford) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5249 |
From John Traherne Moggridge 15 February [1866]
Summary
Is sending Ophrys plants marked as CD requested as wild or under cultivation. Discusses arrangements for a scheme planned for 1867 and his method for marking his Ophrys specimens.
| Author: | John Traherne Moggridge |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 Feb [1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR Pamphlet collection G368 (bound in part of Moggridge 1865–8) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5008A |
Matches: 2 hits
- … letter. Specimens collected at Mentone in spring 1867 are also recorded in Moggridge 1869 (‘ …
- … 1869 , p. 6. CD had noted that in Britain Ophrys species were seldom visited by pollinating insects ( Orchids , pp. 62, 66, 68). CD also referred to the pollination of the bee ophrys, O. apifera , as his ‘greatest puzzle’ ( Correspondence vol. 11, letter …
From J. D. Hooker 13 May 1866
Summary
Refers to enclosure from Asa Gray
with whom he can talk calmly now that war is over. North had no right to resort to bloodshed.
Startled by CD’s attendance at Royal Society soirée.
Has asked E. B. Tylor to make up questions for consuls and missionaries, through whose wives a lot of most curious information [for Descent?] could be obtained.
Tying umbilical cord has always been a mystery to JDH.
John Crawfurd’s paper on cultivated plants is shocking twaddle ["On the migration of cultivated plants in reference to ethnology", J. Bot. Br. & Foreign 4 (1866): 317–32].
R. T. Lowe back from Madeira.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 May 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 71–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5089 |
To Fritz Müller 23 August [1866]
Summary
Thanks for observations on orchids.
FM’s paper on climbing plants [see 5146]; CD has received proofs.
Carl Claus’s pamphlet on copepods [Die Copepodenfauna von Nizza (1866)].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Date: | 23 Aug [1866] |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 8) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5196 |
From Lydia Ernestine Becker 22 December 1866
Summary
Thanks CD for previous communications. Asks him to send a paper relating to flowers to be read at first meeting of her ladies’ literary and scientific society.
| Author: | Lydia Ernestine Becker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 22 Dec 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 113 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5316 |
From H. B. Jones 10 February [1866]
Summary
Sends a diet for CD’s flatulence.
| Author: | Henry Bence Jones |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Feb [1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 168: 77 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5003 |
From Bartholomew James Sulivan 27 June 1866
Summary
Reports on his health.
Discusses a surveying expedition under Richard Charles Mayne on which his son will be Second Lieutenant; hopes to arrange for them to excavate some bones in the Falklands.
| Author: | Bartholomew James Sulivan |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 27 June 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 286 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5133 |
From T. H. Huxley 6 July 1866
Summary
Has taken memorial to G. H. Richards, the Hydrographer. He favours the proposal and will instruct Capt. Mayne. THH will communicate with Dr Cunningham, the naturalist for the expedition.
| Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 July 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 311 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5149 |
From Rudolf Suchsland 16 March 1866
Summary
Asks, on behalf of his father, whether he might publish a new German translation of the Origin, believing Bronn’s to be inadequate.
| Author: | Georg Rudolf Emil (Rudolf) Suchsland |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 16 Mar 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 271 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5035 |
From Cuthbert Collingwood 15 February 1866
Summary
Going to Orient as naturalist aboard the Rifleman. Offers CD his services.
| Author: | Cuthbert Collingwood |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 15 Feb 1866 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 212 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5008 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1869 (see Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers ). He gave a general account of his journey in Collingwood 1868 ; there is a lightly annotated presentation copy in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 169). Joseph Dalton Hooker . Collingwood was lecturer in botany at the Royal Infirmary Medical School, Liverpool ( DNB ). CD’s annotations relate to his letter …
From Anne Marsh-Caldwell 27 November [1866]
Summary
Writing for Mr Corbet, she asks what diet has helped in the treatment of CD’s illness.
| Author: | Anne Caldwell; Anne Marsh; Anne Marsh-Caldwell |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 27 Nov [1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 41 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5286 |
To Alfred Russel Wallace 22 January 1866
Summary
Welcomes ARW’s paper on pigeons ["On the pigeons of the Malay Archipelago", Ibis 1 (1865): 365–400].
Influence of monkeys on distribution of pigeons and parrots.
Asks ARW to explain a passage in his paper on Malayan Papilionidae [Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 25 (1866): 1–71] on how dimorphic forms are produced. CD knows of varieties "that will not blend or intermix", but which produce offspring quite like either parent.
ARW’s remarks on geographical distribution in Celebes "will give a cold shudder to the immutable naturalists".
Presses ARW to work on his travel journal.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Date: | 22 Jan 1866 |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Add 46434, f. 61) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4982 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to A. R. Wallace, 22 September [1865] and n. 3). After his return from Malaya in 1862, Wallace spent five years organising his collections and writing articles. It was not until 1867 that he began in earnest to write The Malay Archipelego , his most popular book; it was published in 1869 ( …
To Fritz Müller [9 and] 15 April [1866]
Summary
Structure of Scaevola and its fertilisation with insect aid.
Fertilisation of Aristolochia.
FM’s paper on climbing plants [see 5146].
Is preparing new edition of Origin.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Date: | 9 and 15 Apr 1866 |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 6) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5050 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … 1869): 141–59. [ Collected papers 2: 138–56. ] Forms of flowers : The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877. Lindley, John. 1853. The vegetable kingdom; or, the structure, classification, and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural system. 3d edition with corrections and additional genera. London: Bradbury & Evans. ML : More letters …
| letter | (19) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (6) |
| Becker, L. E. | (1) |
| Bence Jones, Henry | (1) |
| Caldwell, Anne | (1) |
| Collingwood, Cuthbert | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
| Müller, Fritz | (2) |
| Wallace, A. R. | (2) |
| Admiralty | (1) |
| Darwin, H. E. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (18) |
| Wallace, A. R. | (3) |
| Müller, Fritz | (2) |
| Admiralty | (1) |
| Becker, L. E. | (1) |
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: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of …
Darwin’s queries on expression
Summary
When Darwin resumed systematic research on emotions around 1866, he began to collect observations more widely and composed a list of queries on human expression. A number of handwritten copies were sent out in 1867 (see, for example, letter to Fritz Muller…
Matches: 1 hits
- … When Darwin resumed systematic research on emotions around 1866, he began to collect observations …
Perfect copper-plate hand: From Adolf Reuter, 30 May 1869
Summary
My favourite correspondent was chosen not because he is a brilliant conversationalist or a significant scientific thinker – but after a decade of reading a series of challenging hand writings, my favourite is the one who wrote in a perfect copper-plate…
Matches: 1 hits
- … My favourite correspondent was chosen not because he is a brilliant conversationalist or a …
A beginning, & that is something: To J. D. Hooker, [22 January 1869]
Summary
Alison Pearn talks about a letter Darwin wrote to his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker after finishing corrections to the fifth edition of Origin of Species in 1869.
Matches: 1 hits
- … Alison Pearn talks about a letter Darwin wrote to his friend Joseph …
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: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …
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 …
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: 1 hits
- … Target audience? | Female readership | Reading Variation Darwin's …
Diagrams and drawings in letters
Summary
Over 850 illustrations from the printed volumes of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin have been added to the online transcripts of the letters. The contents include maps, diagrams, drawings, sketches and photographs, covering geological, botanical,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Over 850 illustrations from the printed volumes of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin have …
Rewriting Origin - the later editions
Summary
For such an iconic work, the text of Origin was far from static. It was a living thing that Darwin continued to shape for the rest of his life, refining his ‘one long argument’ through a further five English editions. Many of his changes were made in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … If I lived 20 more years, & was able to work, how I sh d . have to modify the “Origin”, & …
Jane Gray
Summary
Jane Loring Gray, the daughter of a Boston lawyer, married the Harvard botanist Asa Gray in 1848 and evidence suggests that she took an active interest in the scientific pursuits of her husband and his friends. Although she is only known to have…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Jane Loring Gray, the daughter of a Boston lawyer, married the Harvard botanist Asa Gray in 1848 …
Darwin’s hothouse and lists of hothouse plants
Summary
Darwin became increasingly involved in botanical experiments in the years after the publication of Origin. The building of a small hothouse - a heated greenhouse - early in 1863 greatly increased the range of plants that he could keep for scientific…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Towards the end of 1862, Darwin resolved to build a small hothouse at Down House, for …
3.18 Elliott and Fry photos, c.1869-1871
Summary
< Back to Introduction The leading photographic firm of Elliott and Fry seems to have portrayed Darwin at Down House on several occasions. In November 1869 Darwin told A. B. Meyer, who wanted photographs of both him and Wallace for a German…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction The leading photographic firm of Elliott and Fry seems to have …
Darwin in letters, 1882: Nothing too great or too small
Summary
In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and for the first time in decades he was not working on another book. He remained active in botanical research, however. Building on his recent studies in plant…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and …
Darwin in letters,1870: Human evolution
Summary
The year 1870 is aptly summarised by the brief entry Darwin made in his journal: ‘The whole of the year at work on the Descent of Man & Selection in relation to Sex’. Descent was the culmination of over three decades of observations and reflections on…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The year 1870 is aptly summarised by the brief entry Darwin made in his journal: ‘The whole of the …
Photograph album of Dutch admirers
Summary
Darwin received the photograph album for his birthday on 12 February 1877 from his scientific admirers in the Netherlands. He wrote to the Dutch zoologist Pieter Harting, An account of your countrymen’s generous sympathy in having sent me on my…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin received the photograph album for his birthday on 12 February 1877 from his scientific …
Darwin in letters, 1874: A turbulent year
Summary
The year 1874 was one of consolidation, reflection, and turmoil for Darwin. He spent the early months working on second editions of Coral reefs and Descent of man; the rest of the year was mostly devoted to further research on insectivorous plants. A…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The year 1874 was one of consolidation, reflection, and turmoil for Darwin. He spent the early …
Science: A Man’s World?
Summary
Discussion Questions|Letters Darwin's correspondence show that many nineteenth-century women participated in the world of science, be it as experimenters, observers, editors, critics, producers, or consumers. Despite this, much of the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters Darwin's correspondence show that many nineteenth …
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 …
John Murray
Summary
Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was published on 22 November 1859. The publisher was John Murray, who specialised in non-fiction, particularly politics, travel and science, and had published…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's most famous book On the origin of species by means of natural selection (Origin) was …
Race, Civilization, and Progress
Summary
Darwin's first reflections on human progress were prompted by his experiences in the slave-owning colony of Brazil, and by his encounters with the Yahgan peoples of Tierra del Fuego. Harsh conditions, privation, poor climate, bondage and servitude,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Letters | Selected Readings Darwin's first reflections on human progress were …
