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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: 18 hits

  • …   On 6 March 1868, Darwin wrote to the entomologist and accountant John Jenner Weir, ‘If …
  • … The quantity of his correspondence increased dramatically in 1868; the increase was due largely to …
  • … in satisfying female preference in the mating process. In a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace in 1864, …
  • … of changing the races of man’ (Correspondence vol. 12, letter to A. R. Wallace, 28 [May 1864] ). …
  • … and his immediate circle of friends and relations. In July 1868 Darwin was still anticipating that …
  • … his thirst for information on the subject to the zoologist Albert Günther: ‘a drunkard might as well …
  • … as early as 1865, the two-volume work appeared in January 1868. A final delay caused by the indexing …
  • … would be a great loss to the Book’. But Darwin’s angry letter to Murray crossed one from Dallas to …
  • … of labour to remuneration I shall look rather blank’ ( letter from W. S. Dallas, 8 January 1868 ). …
  • … if I try to read a few pages feel fairly nauseated’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 February [1868] ). …
  • … was clearly impressed by Lewes’s reviews. On 7 August 1868 , he wrote him a lengthy letter from …
  • … would strike me in the face, but not behind my back’ ( letter to John Murray, 25 February [1868] ) …
  • … ignorant article… . It is a disgrace to the paper’ ( letter from A. R. Wallace, 24 February [1868] …
  • … ‘he is a scamp & I begin to think a veritable ass’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 1 September [1868] …
  • … Yorkshire, wrote of the colour of duck claws on 17 April 1868 . The letter was addressed to ‘the …
  • … Commons than any assembly in the world’ (from ?, 6 April 1868). On 21 May , Darwin complained to …
  • … proved very fruitful. On 1 May , Darwin received a letter from George Cupples, who was encouraged …
  • … with the enthusiastic breeder, who apologised in a letter of 11–13 May 1868 for his ‘voluminuous …

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: 25 hits

  • … Darwin reckoned that he had started writing on 4 February 1868, only five days after the publication …
  • … shall be a man again & not a horrid grinding machine’  ( letter to Charles Lyell, 25 December …
  • … anything which has happened to me for some weeks’  ( letter to Albert Günther, 13 January [1870] ) …
  • … corrections of style, the more grateful I shall be’  ( letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870] ) …
  • … who wd ever have thought that I shd. turn parson?’ ( letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870] ). …
  • … abt any thing so unimportant as the mind of man!’ ( letter from H. E. Darwin, [after 8 February …
  • … thro’ apes & savages at the moral sense of mankind’ ( letter to F. P. Cobbe, 23 March [1870?] …
  • … how metaphysics & physics form one great philosophy?’ ( letter from F. P. Cobbe, 28 March [1870 …
  • … the folded margin. Darwin, who had posed for the sculptor in 1868, an experience he described as …
  • … in thanks for the drawing ( Correspondence  vol. 16, letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 November [1868] …
  • … patients, but it did not confirm Duchenne’s findings ( letter from James Crichton-Browne, 15 March …
  • … muscle’, he complained, ‘is the bane of existence!’ ( letter to William Ogle, 9 November 1870 ). …
  • … to their belief that all demons and spirits were white ( letter from W. W. Reade, 9 November 1870 …
  • … . . Could you make it scream without hurting it much?’ ( letter to A. D. Bartlett, 5 January [1870] …
  • … or crying badly; but I fear he will not succeed’ ( letter to James Crichton-Browne, 8 June [1870] …
  • … Lucy Wedgwood, who sent a sketch of a baby’s brows ( letter from L. C. Wedgwood, [5 May 1870] ). …
  • … is the inclination to finish my note on this subject’  ( letter from F. C. Donders, 17 May 1870 ). …
  • … the previous year (see  Correspondence  vol. 17, letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 ). His …
  • … (in retrograde direction) naturalist’ (letter to A. R.Wallace, 26 January [1870]). …
  • … towards each other, though in one sense rivals’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 20 April [1870] ). …
  • … version of the theory of descent by natural selection in a letter to Darwin, prompting much anxiety …
  • … But who is to criticise them? No one but yourself’ ( letter from H. W. Bates, 20 May 1870 ). …
  • … me to be able to say that I  never  write reviews’ ( letter to H. W. Bates, [22 May 1870] ). …
  • … design. Darwin commented on Mivart’s essay in a letter to William Henry Flower: ‘I am glad …
  • … including Alexander Agassiz and his family, Anton Dohrn, Albert Günther, Joseph Hooker, Rudolf …

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: 24 hits

  • … & I am sick of correcting’ ( Correspondence  vol. 16, letter to W. D. Fox, 12 December [1868
  • … Well it is a beginning, & that is something’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [22 January 1869] ). …
  • … made any blunders, as is very likely to be the case’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 January 1869 ). …
  • … than I now see is possible or probable’ (see also letter to A. R. Wallace, 22 January [1869] , …
  • … is strengthened by the facts in distribution’ ( letter to James Croll, 31 January [1869] ). Darwin …
  • … tropical species using Croll’s theory. In the same letter to Croll, Darwin had expressed …
  • … a very long period  before  the Cambrian formation’ ( letter to James Croll,  31 January [1869] …
  • … data to go by, but don’t think we have got that yet’ ( letter from James Croll, 4 February 1869 ). …
  • … I d  have been less deferential towards [Thomson]’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 19 March [1869] ). …
  • … completed revisions of the ‘everlasting old Origin’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 1 June [1869] ), he was …
  • … him however in his researches I would willingly do so’ ( letter from Robert Elliot to George …
  • … with his noisy courting of the female in the garden ( letter from Frederick Smith, 8 October 1869 …
  • … doubted her ability to recognise the different varieties ( letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 25 February …
  • … weary of everlasting males & females, cocks & hens.—’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 November …
  • … with much more of the same description’ ( enclosure to letter from Henry Maudsley, 20 May 1869 ). …
  • … in an additional & proximate cause in regard to Man’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 …
  • … orang-utan, and the bird of paradise  (Wallace 1869a; letter to A. R. Wallace, 22 March [1869] ) …
  • … does himself an injustice & never demands justice’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 ). …
  • … geological structures of the South American cordillera ( letter to Charles Lyell, 20 May 1869 ), …
  • … of the same species that Darwin had investigated in depth ( letter from C. F. Claus, 6 February …
  • … role of earthworms in the formation of the soil ( letter to  Gardeners’ Chronicle , 9 May [1869] …
  • … on the German translation of  Variation  (Carus trans. 1868). The French translation proved …
  • … the French edition of  Variation  (Moulinié trans. 1868), and CD now extended his permission for …
  • … Scientific Opinion , launched towards the end of 1868, was one of several periodicals begun in …

Darwin in letters, 1871: An emptying nest

Summary

The year 1871 was an extremely busy and productive one for Darwin, with the publication in February of his long-awaited book on human evolution, Descent of man. The other main preoccupation of the year was the preparation of his manuscript on expression.…

Matches: 27 hits

  • … book since the publication of  Variation  in February 1868, but many of the topics, such as the …
  • … do to talk about it, which no doubt promotes the sale’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 26 March 1871 ) …
  • … to her liking, ‘to keep in memory of the book’ ( letter to H. E. Darwin, 20 March 1871 ). …
  • … and had forsaken his lunch and dinner in order to read it ( letter from James Crichton-Browne, 19 …
  • … they believe to be the truth, whether pleasant or not’ (letter from W. W. Reade, 21 February 1871). …
  • … and Oldham … They club together to buy them’ ( letter from W. B. Dawkins, 23 February 1871 ). …
  • … one’s n th . ancestor lived between tide-marks!’ ( letter from T. H. Huxley, 20 February 1871 ). …
  • … habits, furnished with a tail and pointed ears”  (letter from Asa Gray, 14 April 1871) …
  • … ‘will-power’ and the heavy use of their arms and legs ( letter from C. L. Bernays, 25 February 1871 …
  • … in order to make it darker than the hair on his head ( letter from W. B. Tegetmeier, [before 25 …
  • … together with an image of an orang-utan foetus ( letter from Hinrich Nitsche, 18 April 1871 ). …
  • … of himself, adding that it made a ‘very poor return’ ( letter to Hinrich Nitsche, 25 April [1871] …
  • … each night, returning to its allotted space each morning ( letter from Arthur Nicols, 7 March 1871 …
  • … without having a high aesthetic appreciation of beauty ( letter from E. J. Pfeiffer, [before 26 …
  • … endowment of spiritual life’ at some time in the past ( letter from Roland Trimen, 17 and 18 April …
  • … to the white’. Darwin thanked Innes for his ‘pleasant letter’, but asserted his antipathy to human …
  • … myself a good way ahead of you, as far as this goes’ ( letter to J. B. Innes, 29 May [1871] ). …
  • … ‘whereas the baboon is as the Creator made it’ ( letter from George Morrish, 18 March 1871 ). …
  • … could also redeem the wayward author of  Descent  ( letter from a child of God, [after 24 …
  • …  with the most deep and tender religious feeling’ ( letter from F. E. Abbot, 20 August 1871 ). The …
  • … charges of atheism amongst his ‘clerical brethren’ ( letter from George Henslow, 5 December 1871 ) …
  • … from one and the same  catarrhine monkey !’ ( letter from Ernst Haeckel, 21 December 1871 ). …
  • … review as ‘a windbag full of metaphysics & classics’ ( letter to John Murray, 13 April [1871] …
  • … law &c’, and transmitted by culture, not biology ( letter from John Morley, 30 March 1871 ). …
  • … dog when it was confronted by the presence of its master. ( Letter from Hensleigh Wedgwood, [3–9 …
  • … sense was especially troubling to Emma, as indicated in a letter that she wrote to Cobbe on 25 …
  • … criticisms. Alexander Agassiz, Abraham Dee Bartlett, Albert Günther, George Busk, T. H. Huxley, …