Summary

Concerned about ED’s headaches, CD writes an affectionate letter.

Believes he has found a rare slave-making species of ant.

Is reading novels: Beneath the surface and Three chances.

Summary

He has the wedding ring. Agrees to coming straight home after the wedding, if that is what she prefers.

Summary

Detailed account of progress of Anne’s illness.

Summary

Reports on his father’s health, and Catherine’s. CD, himself, has been a little sick.

Hensleigh [Wedgwood] thinks he has settled the free-will question – "we have none whatsoever".

Summary

The house at 12 Upper Gower Street is theirs.

Summary

Family news. Mainly concerned about Doddy’s [W. E. Darwin’s] health.

Summary

The happy family life at Shrewsbury. CD is looking so well his father would not have known there was anything the matter with him. The year’s accounts come to £1380.

Summary

Family news from Shrewsbury.

Summary

News of family and of his stay at Shrewsbury.

Calculates the newly instituted income tax will mean £30 per annum.

Summary

News of the Shrewsbury family. He cannot get his father to sympathise with the numbness in his finger ends or his fears of "ruin and extravagance".

Summary

In his first letter after their engagement, CD reports on the happy reception of the news by his family. He hopes she will not find life with him solitary and dull after the lively social life of Maer.

Summary

Reports on Anne’s health throughout the night and from 8 a.m. through to 4.30 p.m.

Summary

Mainly news of the three children.

Summary

Comments on recent visit to Maer. Explains that his notion of happiness as quietness and solitude derives from Beagle experience. Hopes Emma will humanise him. Comments on marriage planned for Tuesday.

Describes recent visit by Lyell and his wife. Talked geology for half an hour "with poor Mrs Lyell sitting by". "I want practice in ill-treating the female sex."

Summary

His [first] railway journey was disappointing.

Summary

His dinner with the Carlyles. "He is the best worth listening to of any man" – but CD cannot get up much admiration for Mrs C, partly because of her Scots accent, which makes her difficult to understand.

Summary

Asks that in the event of his death, Emma should have the sketch of his species theory edited and published. Suggests possible editors, among them Lyell, Edward Forbes, and J. D. Hooker. [CD annotation on cover: "Hooker by far best man to edit my species volume Aug 1854".]

Summary

Recounts his misadventures on the train journey back to London. Tells of a visit to the FitzRoys and a friendly letter from Lyell. Whether CD and Emma should live in central London or in the suburbs is a perplexing problem, much discussed by relatives and friends.

Summary

Has been with the Lyells doing geology.

Is reading a biography of Sir W. Scott [J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott (1837–8)]; also Mungo Park’s book [Travels (1799)].

Has hired a cook at fourteen guineas a year with tea and sugar.

Summary

His search for a London house. He visits the Lyells, who give solemn advice to choose their London acquaintances carefully.