To Hermann Müller 23 February [1868]
Summary
Offers to undertake publication of English translation of Fritz Müller’s Für Darwin. W. S. Dallas will translate it.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Heinrich Ludwig Hermann (Hermann) Müller |
| Date: | 23 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 146: 430 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5919 |
To Fritz Müller 11 February 1868
Summary
Is working on sexual selection and is interested in any anomalous sex ratios in lower animals and any sex-related characters.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Date: | 11 Feb 1868 |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 21) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5860 |
From John Murray 6 February [1868]
Summary
Advance sale of Variation has exhausted the 1500 copies printed. Murray sends note for £300 author’s payment. Wants to print 1250 more immediately.
| Author: | John Murray |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 354 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5844 |
From G. H. Darwin [27] March [1868]
Summary
Discusses law versus engineering and business as a career.
Supposes ARW will have "squashed" GHD’s criticisms of his notes on sterility.
| Author: | George Howard Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [27] Mar [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 210.2: 3 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6047 |
From J. D. Hooker 22 June 1868
Summary
The grass [see 6243] is Sporobolus elongatus, common in the tropics.
Visit to Oxford with X Club.
On his forthcoming address.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 22 June 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 218–19 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6254 |
To J. D. Hooker 2 December 1868
Summary
Enthusiastic about JDH’s plan for a British Flora – "a grand idea to make a Flora a guide for knowledge already acquired & to be acquired". Gives examples of subjects.
No work exists on various biological points in plants.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 2 Dec 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 94: 102–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6487 |
From Edward Cresy 27 January 1868
Summary
Congratulations on George’s being Second Wrangler at Cambridge.
| Author: | Edward Cresy, Jr |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 27 Jan 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 250 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5806 |
From C. V. Naudin 29 March 1868
Summary
Thanks for Variation.
Complains of a severe facial neuralgia.
He is planning to build an experimental laboratory in the south.
| Author: | Charles Victor Naudin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 Mar 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 172: 9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6068 |
From B. J. Sulivan 19 March 1868
Summary
Writes of his son’s affairs.
Is reading Variation and discusses a point relating to feeding habits of horses.
| Author: | Bartholomew James Sulivan |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 19 Mar 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 292 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6026 |
From George Cupples 1 May 1868
Summary
Has read Variation;
is preparing a monograph on Scotch deerhounds. Offers CD information on size of male and female deerhounds.
Might not the effect of human mother’s imagination on "character of offspring" support Pangenesis?
| Author: | George Cupples |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 May 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 283 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6157 |
To A. R. Wallace 17 [March 1868]
Summary
On his Primula paper for the Linnean Society ["On the specific difference between Primula veris, Brit. Fl. (var. officialis, Linn.), P. vulgaris, Brit. Fl. var. acaulis, Linn.), and P. elatior, Jacq.; and on the hybrid nature of the common oxlip; with supplementary remarks on naturally produced hybrids of the genus Verbascum", [officinalis!?] J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 10 (1869): 437–54].
Peacocks and sexual selection.
ARW’s sterility argument has driven CD’s sons half-mad.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Date: | 17 [Mar 1868] |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 43434: 115–17) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6018 |
To Ludwig Rütimeyer 25 February [1868]
Summary
Will forward LR’s memoir to Earl of Tankerville. Has sent LR’s pamphlet on "Darwin Lehre" [Die Grenzen der Thierwelt (1868)] to a German lady he employs as a translator. Cannot agree that there is an innate principle of perfection.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Karl Ludwig (Ludwig) Rütimeyer |
| Date: | 25 Feb [1868] |
| Classmark: | Universitätsbibliothek Basel, Handschriften (G IV 91, 5) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5930 |
From John Scott 8 January [1868]
Summary
Asks CD for memorandum giving his opinion on a proposal to move the site of the Calcutta Botanic Garden. Gives details of the position, the physical character and the climate of the present site to show how desirable a move would be.
| Author: | John Scott |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 8 Jan [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 116 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5351 |
To J. D. Hooker 29 December 1868
Summary
JDH’s letter invaluable for an answer to Nägeli’s essay [Entstehung und Begriff der Naturhistorischen Art (1865)].
Has gone through his index to Gardeners’ Chronicle but finds little of use to JDH for his Flora.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 29 Dec 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 94: 108—9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6515 |
To J. D. Hooker 21 May [1868]
Summary
JDH too severe on Duke of Argyll.
Pities JDH on [BAAS] address [see 6099]; Huxley feels JDH will do well and will not pity him.
Thinks Huxley will give an excellent and original lecture on geographical distribution of birds.
Has been working hard on sexual selection and correspondence about it.
Mignonette is sterile with its own pollen but any two distinct plants are fertile together. It is utterly mysterious and not even Pangenesis will explain it.
On Lyell’s book [Principles, 10th ed.].
Wallace’s wonderful cleverness, but he is not cautious enough. CD differs from Wallace on birds’ nests and protection.
A. Murray’s miserable criticism of Wallace [J. Travel & Nat. Hist. 1 (1868): 137–45].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 21 May [1868] |
| Classmark: | DAR 94: 62–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6196 |
From Roland Trimen 13 April 1868
Summary
Extract from Émile Blanchard’s Metamorphoses, moeurs et instincts des insectes [1868], on attraction of males by female Lepidoptera, and possible explanation.
| Author: | Roland Trimen |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 Apr 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 85: B50–1 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6116 |
Matches: 2 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 13, letter to A. R. Wallace, 1 February [1865] ). Trimen possessed …
- … letter from J. J. Weir, [before 3] March 1868 . René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur had suggested that olfaction could be one of the functions of antennae in moths ( Réaumur 1734–42 , 1: 224). The photograph has not been found. From 1865, …
From J. D. Hooker 13 February 1868
Summary
Rejoices over news of Variation sales.
Pall Mall Gazette review [7 (1868): 555, 636, 652] is undoubtedly by G. H. Lewes [see 5951].
Dinner at Lyells’.
Dean Stanley favours a monument to Faraday in Westminster Abbey.
Perceval Wright is back from Seychelles and reports on plants he collected.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 13 Feb 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 102: 198–9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5874 |
From J. J. Moulinié 7 September 1868
Summary
Pleased to have met the Darwins.
Sends his photograph.
Printers are past the index in vol. 2 of Variation.
| Author: | Jean Jacques Moulinié |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Sept 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 271 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6355 |
From J. P. M. Weale 23 October 1868
Summary
Describes Lappago aleina, a species of South African grass,
and reports his observations on locusts and their feeding habits.
| Author: | James Philip Mansel Weale |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 23 Oct 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 46.1: 93a–94a |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-6428 |
From Alfred Russel Wallace 7 February 1868
Summary
Thanks for Variation.
Reports work on his travel book [The Malay Archipelago (1869)].
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Feb 1868 |
| Classmark: | DAR 106: B48 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5848 |
| letter | (58) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (26) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
| Wallace, A. R. | (3) |
| Sulivan, B. J. | (2) |
| Walsh, B. D. | (2) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (32) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (8) |
| Müller, Fritz | (2) |
| Bartlett, A. D. | (1) |
| Bates, H. W. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (58) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (14) |
| Wallace, A. R. | (4) |
| Müller, Fritz | (3) |
| Darwin, G. H. | (2) |
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: 1 hits
- … In 1865, the chief work on Charles Darwin’s mind was the writing of The variation of animals and …
Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865
Summary
On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher …
Prize possessions: To Henry Denny, 17 January [1865]
Summary
Between 1980 and 2018, I was honorary curator of the Alfred Denny Museum of Zoology in the University of Sheffield. One of our prize possessions was a letter from Darwin to Henry Denny, then curator and assistant secretary of the Literary and Philosophical…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Between 1980 and 2018, I was honorary curator of the Alfred Denny Museum of Zoology in the …
The Lyell–Lubbock dispute
Summary
In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book Prehistoric times, accused Lyell of plagiarism. The dispute caused great dismay among many of their mutual scientific friends, some of whom took immediate action…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book …
How to manage it: To J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865]
Summary
Sometimes, what stands out in a Darwin letter is not what is in it, but what is left out or just implied because the recipient would have known what Darwin was referring to. It is frustrating to spend hours looking but fail to identify something mentioned…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sometimes, what stands out in a Darwin letter is not what is in it, but what is left out or just …
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 …
Darwin's health
Summary
On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend Joseph Hooker from Great Malvern in Worcestershire, where Dr James Manby Gully ran a fashionable water-cure establishment. Darwin apologised for his delayed reply to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 28 March 1849, ten years before Origin was published, Darwin wrote to his good friend …
Inheritance
Summary
It was crucial to Darwin’s theories of species change that naturally occurring variations could be inherited. But at the time when he wrote Origin, he had no explanation for how inheritance worked – it was just obvious that it did. Darwin’s attempt to…
Matches: 1 hits
- … 'Hypotheses may often be of service to science, when they involve a certain portion of …
Referencing women’s work
Summary
Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but whether and how they were acknowledged in print involved complex considerations of social standing, professional standing, and personal preference.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but …
George Busk
Summary
After the Beagle voyage, Darwin’s collection of bryozoans disappears from the records until the material was sent, in 1852, for study by George Busk, one of the foremost workers on the group of his day. In 1863, on the way down to Malvern Wells, Darwin had…
Matches: 1 hits
- … After the Beagle voyage, Darwin’s collection of bryozoans disappears from the records until …
3.10 Ernest Edwards, 'Men of Eminence'
Summary
< Back to Introduction In 1865 Darwin was invited to feature in another series of published photographs, Portraits of Men of Eminence in Literature, Science and Art, with Biographical Memoirs . . . The Photographs from Life by Ernest Edwards, B.A.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction In 1865 Darwin was invited to feature in another series of …
Religion
Summary
Design|Personal Belief|Beauty|The Church Perhaps the most notorious realm of controversy over evolution in Darwin's day was religion. The same can be said of the evolution controversy today; however the nature of the disputes and the manner in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Design | Personal Belief | Beauty | The Church Perhaps the most notorious …
Fake Darwin: myths and misconceptions
Summary
Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, with full debunking below...
Matches: 1 hits
- … Many myths have persisted about Darwin's life and work. Here are a few of the more pervasive ones, …
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 …
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: 1 hits
- … This selection of Charles Darwin’s letters includes correspondence with his friends and 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 …
Darwin on race and gender
Summary
Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In Descent of man, he tried to explain the origin of human races, and many of the differences between the sexes, with a single theory: sexual selection. Sexual…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In …
Scientific Practice
Summary
Specialism|Experiment|Microscopes|Collecting|Theory Letter writing is often seen as a part of scientific communication, rather than as integral to knowledge making. This section shows how correspondence could help to shape the practice of science, from…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Specialism | Experiment | Microscopes | Collecting | Theory Letter writing …
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 …
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 …
