From Fritz Müller 9 January 1881
Summary
Thanks for CD’s offer of assistance after flood damage.
Comments on Movement in plants. Discusses sleep movements and paraheliotropism of Maranta and other plants.
Describes the fertilisation of figs by Hymenoptera.
| Author: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Jan 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 99: 217–20 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12996 |
To J. D. Hooker 6 August 1881
Summary
Responds to JDH’s outline history of plant geography.
Considers Humboldt the "greatest scientific traveller who ever lived".
Discusses the origin and rapid radiation of angiosperms in Cretaceous period.
Comments on importance of work of Alphonse de Candolle, Saporta, Axel Blytt.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 6 Aug 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 95: 518–23 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13277 |
From C. J. Breese 7 November 1881
Summary
Sends CD an abstract of his 1871 paper on the earthworm, and requests information on the phenomenon of luminosity.
| Author: | Charles James Breese |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 Nov 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 160: 289 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13469 |
From Joseph Plimsoll 26 October 1881
Summary
Urges CD to find God.
| Author: | Joseph Plimsoll |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 Oct 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 201: 29 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13434 |
To A. R. Wallace 2 January 1881
Summary
On land migration of plants. The case in Nature is striking but CD doubts that seeds of plants could be blown from mountains of Abyssinia to mountains of Madagascar.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Date: | 2 Jan 1881 |
| Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12968 |
From W. E. Darwin 9 December 1881
Summary
Financial paperwork; pleased at news of Horace and Ida Darwin’s baby, Erasmus.
| Author: | William Erasmus Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Dec 1881 |
| Classmark: | Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 98) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13541F |
From Archibald Geikie 10 October 1881
Summary
Thanks for Earthworms.
Importance of wind in soil formation and transport.
| Author: | Archibald Geikie |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 10 Oct 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 26 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13387 |
From Francis Darwin 14 May 1881
Summary
News from the laboratory at Strasbourg; is working on Equisetum roots. Wortmann has found circumnutation in the mycelium of a fast-growing fungus. Please send papers (see 13155).
| Author: | Francis Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 14 May 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 274.1: 70 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13155F |
From H. N. Moseley 9 December 1881
Summary
He would support a foreigner for professorship of botany as CD suggests. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer is proposing W. C. Williamson, whom HNM considers a disaster.
| Author: | Henry Nottidge Moseley |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 9 Dec 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 263 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13535 |
From J. J. Weir 27 December 1881
Summary
Discusses mule’s resemblance to parents.
| Author: | John Jenner Weir |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 27 Dec 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 148: 467 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13582 |
From Lawson Tait 29 July 1881
Summary
Points out what he believes to be two errors in CD’s paper on inheritance [Nature 24 (1881): 257; Collected papers 2: 230–1].
| Author: | Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 July 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 178: 42 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13257 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter to Nature , 13 July [1881] . In his article in Nature (see n. 1, above), CD described a man who had sustained damage to his thumbs and thumbnails in his youth, and had apparently passed the resulting deformity on to some of his children and grandchildren. The deformity is described as characteristic of hereditary syphilis in Lancereaux 1868– …
From B. J. Sulivan 29 September 1881
Summary
Gives further details on his grapes.
Tells of his recent movements and state of health.
| Author: | Bartholomew James Sulivan |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 29 Sept 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 177: 315 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13363 |
| letter | (12) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
| Breese, C. J. | (1) |
| Darwin, Francis | (1) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
| Geikie, Archibald | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Wallace, A. R. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
| Breese, C. J. | (1) |
| Darwin, Francis | (1) |
| Darwin, W. E. | (1) |
| Geikie, Archibald | (1) |
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: 1 hits
- … On 6 March 1868, Darwin wrote to the entomologist and accountant John Jenner Weir, ‘If …
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 …
6430_10256
Summary
From Sven Nilsson to J. D. Hookerf1 25 October 1868Lund (Suède)25 Okt. 1868.Monsieur le Professeur! J’ai écrit à deux de mes amis qui ont des connaissances personnelles à la Lapponie, pour avoir les…
Matches: 1 hits
- … From Sven Nilsson to J. D. Hooker f1 25 October 1868 …
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 …
5935_4582
Summary
From J. D. Hooker 26[–7] February 1868KewFeby 26th/68Dear Darwin I have been bursting with impatience to hear what you would say of the Athenæum Review & who wrote it— I could not conceive who…
Matches: 1 hits
- … From J. D. Hooker 26[–7] February 1868 Kew Feby 26 …
Reading my roommate’s illustrious ancestor: To T. H. Huxley, 10 June 1868
Summary
My roommate at Harvard College was Tom Baum, now a Hollywood screenwriter. Tom’s full name is Thomas Henle Baum, his middle name a reference to a German physician ancestor for whom the ‘Loop of Henle’ in the kidney had been named. Other than this iconic…
Matches: 1 hits
- … My roommate at Harvard College was Tom Baum, now a Hollywood screenwriter. Tom’s full name is …
5873_1488
Summary
From B. J. Sulivan 13 February [1868]f1 Bournemouth Feby. 13. My dear Darwin As Mr Stirling has sent me the recpt. you may as well have it with the Photo of the four Fuegian boys which he wishes me to send you in case you have not seen it. He…
Matches: 1 hits
- … From B. J. Sulivan 13 February [1868] f1 Bournemouth Feby. 13. My dear …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Descent
Summary
There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘ Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming …
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: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine …
Controversy
Summary
The best-known controversies over Darwinian theory took place in public or in printed reviews. Many of these were highly polemical, presenting an over-simplified picture of the disputes. Letters, however, show that the responses to Darwin were extremely…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Disagreement & Respect | Conduct of Debate | Darwin & Wallace The best-known …
Darwin and the Church
Summary
The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It shows another side of the man who is more often remembered for his personal struggles with faith, or for his role in large-scale controversies over the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The story of Charles Darwin’s involvement with the church is one that is told far too rarely. It …
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 …
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 …
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 …
