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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: 20 hits

  • …   On 6 March 1868, Darwin wrote to the entomologist and accountant John Jenner Weir, ‘If any …
  • … 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 …
  • … as well say, he would drink a little and not too much’ ( letter to Albert Günther, 15 May [1868] ) …
  • … 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] ). …
  • … a scamp & I begin to think a veritable ass’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 1 September [1868] ). …
  • … of thanks to the naturalist and customs offcial John Jenner Weir for a paper on apterous Lepidoptera …
  • … collection of materials on sexual selection, and he asked Weir to ‘call to mind any facts bearing on …
  • … Row who was a great authority on the ‘London fancy’. Weir received a ‘Newgate cut’ and much …
  • … added, ‘for it is clear that I have none’ ( letter to J. J. Weir, 30 May [1868] ). Sexual …
  • … role of colour, sound, and smell in attracting females. J. J. Weir reported on 14 April 1868
  • … of Hooker’s distributed it in Japan ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 5 September 1868 ); Edward Wilson, …
  • … the previous year by James Philip Mansel Weale ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [20 May 1868] ). …
  • … through adaptation to local conditions ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [23 December 1868] ). Barber’s …
  • … a ‘deep-seated enmity to Revealed Religion’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 1 September [1868], n. 11 ). …

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: 17 hits

  • … handwritten copies were sent out in 1867 (see, for example, letter to Fritz Muller, 22 February …
  • … in Ceylon, wrote the botanist George Thwaites on 22 July 1868 , “all endeavour to drill their …
  • … Scottish botanist John Scott wrote from Calcutta, 4 May 1868 : “Shame is … expressed by an …
  • … Correspondence about Darwin’s Questionnaire (click on the letter dates to see the individual letters …
  • … Correspondent Letter date Location …
  • … Africa)? ] mentioned in JPM Weale letter, but Bowker's answers not found …
  • … Bulmer, J 13 Aug 1868 [Gipps Land, nr. Flemington? …
  • … Bunnett, Templeton 13 Aug 1868 Echuca, Australia …
  • … Woolston, Southampton, England letter to W.E. Darwin shrugging …
  • … Square W London, England enclosed in a letter from Henry Maudsley …
  • … Darwin, W.E. [after 29 March 1868] Chester Place, …
  • … Darwin, W.E. [7? April 1868] Southampton, England …
  • … Darwin, W.E. [22? April 1868] Southampton, England …
  • … South Africa possibly included in letter from Mansel Weale …
  • … Peradeniya, Ceylon enclosed in letter from G.H.K. Thwaites …
  • … Lake Wellington, Australia letter to F.J.H. von Mueller nodding, …
  • … Kaffirs Weale, J.P.M. 23 Oct 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: 23 hits

  • … Observers Women: Letter 1194 - Darwin to Whitby, M. A. T., [12 August …
  • … silkworm breeds, or peculiarities in inheritance. Letter 3787 - Darwin, H. E. to …
  • … observations of cats’ instinctive behaviour. Letter 4258 - Becker, L. E. to Darwin, …
  • … to artificially fertilise plants in her garden. Letter 4523 - Wedgwood, L. C. to …
  • … be made on seeds of Pulmonaria officinalis . Letter 5745 - Barber, M. E. to …
  • … Expression from her home in South Africa. Letter 6736 - Gray, A. & J. L …
  • … Expression during a trip to Egypt. Letter 7223 - Darwin to Wedgwood, L. C., …
  • Letter 5817 - Darwin to Huxley, T. H., [30 January 1868] Darwin asks Thomas Huxley to …
  • … of wormholes. Letter 8611 - Cupples, A. J. to Darwin, E., [8 November1872] …
  • Letter 4436 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., [26-27 March 1864] Darwin thanks Hooker for …
  • … and orangs. Letter 5705 - Haast, J. F. J. von to Darwin, [4 December 1867] …
  • … 6453 - Langton, E. to Wedgwood, S. E., [9 November 1868] Darwin’s nephew, Edmund, …
  • … - Langton, E. & C. to Wedgwood S. E., [after 9 November 1868] Darwin’s nephews, Edmund …
  • … in a marble tablet”. Letter 6815 - Scott, J. to Darwin, [2 July 1869] John …
  • Letter 6139  - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [22 April 1868] Doubleday responds to Darwin’s …
  • … Men: Letter 385  - Wedgwood, S. E. & J. to Darwin, [10 November 1837] …
  • … Hall, Staffordshire. Letter 1219  - Hooker, J. D. to Darwin, [3 February 1849] …
  • … Men: Letter 1836  - Berkeley, M. J. to Darwin, [7 March 1856] Clergyman and …
  • … to feed to them. Letter 2069  - Tenant, J. to Darwin, [31 March 1857] James …
  • … at the University of Bonn. Letter 6046  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] …
  • Letter 6083  - Casparay, J. X. R. to Darwin, [2 April 1868] Casparay details his …
  • Letter 6139  - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [22 April 1868] Naturalist Henry Doubleday …
  • … Expression . Letter 6046  - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, [24 March 1868] …

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: 16 hits

  • … Britain? Letters Letter 109 - Wedgwood, J. to Darwin, …
  • … pursuit of real, professional work on his return. Letter 158 - Darwin to Darwin, R. W., …
  • … colour and “beauty” of tropical vegetation. Letter 542 - Darwin to Wedgwood, C. S., [27 …
  • … meals, family time and walks into town with Emma. Letter 555 - Darwin to FitzRoy, R., …
  • … ‘ A Biographical Sketch of an Infant ’. Letter 2781 - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [3 May …
  • … them in the north-facing borders of his garden. Letter 2864 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., …
  • … and “never saw anything so beautiful”. Letter 4230 - Darwin to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [2 …
  • … linked with his domestic family life. Letter 4377 - Haeckel, E. P. A. to Darwin, [2 …
  • … at least provide Darwin with aesthetic pleasure. Letter 4436 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., …
  • … he has moved one or two of them into his bedroom. Letter 4469 - Hooker, J. D. to Darwin …
  • … before expecting to dedicate his life to science. Letter 4472 - Hooker, J. D. to Darwin …
  • … duty to the public to contribute more than this. Letter 6044 - Darwin to Darwin, G. H., …
  • … and influence to help shape his sons’ fortunes. Letter 6046 - Weir, J. J. to Darwin, …
  • … from the comfort of his “ pretty garden ”. Letter 6139 - Doubleday, H. to Darwin, [22 …
  • … moths all of which were conducted in his home. Letter 6453 - Langton, E. to Wedgwood, S …
  • … attracted to dark spots on the bedroom wallpaper. Letter 10821 - Graham C. C. to Darwin …

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: 27 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 ). …
  • … & valuable labours on the Primates’ ( letter to St G. J. Mivart, 23 April [1870] ). He also …
  • … Ape differs from a lump of granite’ ( letter from St G. J. Mivart, 22 April 1870 ). Mivart …
  • … whatever may have been his “origin” ( letter from St G. J. Mivart, 25 April 1870 ). In his …
  • … than I could a ball at Buckingham Palace’ ( letter to B. J. Sulivan, 30 June [1870] ). …
  • … and foetus during pregnancy. As a case in point, John Jenner Weir described the offspring of a mare …
  • … persons long married grow like each other’ ( letter from J. J. Weir, 17 March 1870 ). …
  • … in Bastian’s solutions of the same kind’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 12 July [1870] ). Bastian’s …
  • … to be thus killed by a man of 86’  ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 25 May [1870] ). On learning of this, …
  • … do, I know no more than the man in the moon’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 25 May [1870] ). …
  • … not entirely participated in this feeling’  ( letter to J. V. Carus, 18 August 1870 ). Carus …

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: 25 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 …
  • … while Roland Trimen in South Africa and John Jenner Weir in London sent more information on male and …
  • … 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 ). …
  • … on the German translation of  Variation  (Carus trans. 1868). The French translation proved …
  • … [her] to translate “Domestic Animals”’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 19 November [1869] ). Angered by …
  • … the French edition of  Variation  (Moulinié trans. 1868), and CD now extended his permission for …
  • … poured boiling oil over the bumptious man’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker,  7 September 1869 ). Huxley …
  • … Scientific Opinion , launched towards the end of 1868, was one of several periodicals begun in …
  • … suggestions to its publisher, Macmillan ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 14 November 1869 ).  Darwin …

Sexual selection

Summary

Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that (other than in the reproductive organs themselves) it could not explain the often marked differences between the males and females of the same species.  So what…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … later quoted at length in  Descent . Darwin (whose letter to Brent is missing) seems to …
  • … sees a handsome man,’ Darwin  wrote to Wallace in March 1868 , ‘& without observing whether …

Darwin in letters, 1867: A civilised dispute

Summary

Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work, The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Variation). The importance of Darwin’s network of correspondents becomes vividly apparent in his work on expression in…

Matches: 27 hits

  • … suppose abuse is as good as praise for selling a Book’ ( letter to John Murray, 31 January [1867] …
  • … to the printer, but without the additional chapter. In a letter written on 8 February [1867] to …
  • … books,  Descent  and  Expression . In the same letter, Darwin revealed the conclusion to his …
  • … variation of animals and plants under domestication . In a letter to his son William dated 27 …
  • … of his brother’s embryological papers with his first letter to Darwin of 15 March 1867 , although …
  • … . Indeed, he told his publisher, John Murray, in a letter of 4 April [1867] , not to send …
  • … tell me, at what rate your work will be published’ ( letter from J. V. Carus, 5 April 1867 ). This …
  • … & sent to him, he may wish to give up the task’ ( letter to Carl Vogt, 12 April [1867] ). …
  • … fit person’ to introduce the work to the German public ( letter from J. V. Carus, 15 April 1867 ). …
  • … Vogt should translate my book in preference to you’ ( letter to J. V. Carus, 18 April [1867] ). …
  • … varieties at the eye, which resulted in a mottled hybrid ( letter from Robert Trail, 5 April 1867 …
  • … seems to me, if true, a wonderful physiological fact’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 15 April [1867] ). …
  • … it will be a somewhat important step in Biology’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 22 August [1867] ). …
  • … if you attack it & me with unparalleled ferocity’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 17 November [1867] …
  • … own discretion; anyhow most ought to be introduced’ ( letter to W. S. Dallas, 8 November [1867] ). …
  • … however, & I cannot get on so quickly as I could wish’ (letter from W. S. Dallas, 20 November …
  • … with me about 27 years old In a letter of 22 February [1867] to Fritz Müller in …
  • … chapter on the cause or meaning of Expression.’ With this letter Darwin enclosed a list of questions …
  • … ‘Queries about Expression’. In a postscript to the letter he added, ‘But you must not plague …
  • … that Darwin send his queries to foreign newspapers. The letter also reveals that he did not share …
  • … work in some “supplemental remarks on expression”’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, [12–17] March [1867] …
  • … of no one to send them to, so do not want any more’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 15 April [1867] ). …
  • … derived from Asa Gray’s printed queries, was published in 1868 in the  Annual Report of the Board …
  • … the colours were protective and suggested that John Jenner Weir might conduct experiments in his …
  • … had read it and whether it was worth reading ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 4 February 1867 ). In a …
  • … judgement he would subdue; that is yours’ ( letter from J. V. Carus, 5 April 1867 ). Darwin …
  • … work itself.’  Variation  was published on 30 January 1868. …