Summary

Asks RMcL to correct the proper names in enclosed proof of a letter from Fritz Müller to be published in Nature. CD has no book with names of Trichoptera. [See 11930.]

Summary

Comments on book by LAE and Gustave Gevaert [see 11916].

Summary

Thanks for seeds and for kindness to Frank Darwin.

Summary

Pleased to hear that EK agrees to CD’s request to have article on Erasmus Darwin translated. Will wait for EK’s enlargement. Has decided submission to Fortnightly Review would be useless.

Warns against Anna Seward’s biography of Dr Darwin.

Summary

Remembers that BWR had planned to write a life of Erasmus Darwin. Ernst Krause now intends to enlarge his Erasmus Darwin; would welcome any information or material.

Summary

Frank’s reasons for not accepting the Cambridge Examinership.

Summary

Acknowledges the diploma [of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Argentina].

Sends his photograph and a copy of Origin.

Summary

Sends copy of a lecture [by John Dowson, see 11949] published in 1861.

Has not yet found a copy of Anna Seward’s biography for EK. It is a wretched, inaccurate book. To contradict Anna Seward’s version, CD intends to write a short preface to the translation of EK’s essay. Doubts that it will be worth translating into German.

Summary

CD agrees to subscribe to reprint of Blyth’s Field articles on cranes.

Summary

Describes plans to publish English edition of Krause’s work on Erasmus Darwin.

Will correct Anna Seward’s calumnies [in Memoirs of the life of Dr Darwin (1804)].

Asks about family letters.

Doubts some stories about Erasmus Darwin [in Christiana C. Hankin, ed., Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck (1858)].

Summary

Seeks clarification of statements on sleep movements on p. 29 of WFPP’s work [Die periodischen Bewegungen der Blattorgane (1875)].

Summary

Wants a Cassia identified

and several plants and seeds for experimental purposes.

Summary

Can CMCD provide a photograph of Elston, the birthplace of Erasmus Darwin, with permission to have it reproduced in Erasmus Darwin.

Summary

Announces his intention to translate and preface [E. Krause’s] sketch of Dr Erasmus Darwin’s life. Asks whether RD has any documents concerning Dr Darwin or letters by him.

Summary

CD has written to members of the family for Dr Erasmus Darwin materials and letters. Is apprehensive lest his preface and EK’s essay interfere with one another. Will confine himself to ED’s character and letters;

has begun investigating the influence he had on medical practice.

Summary

Thanks for FHGH’s new book; also for the list of seeds, but he does not want any at present.

Summary

Thanks for the plants for heliotropic experiments.

Summary

The "great book" [presumably Dr Erasmus Darwin’s commonplace book, see Erasmus Darwin, p. iii] arrived safely.

Can RD supply a photograph of [Breadsall] Priory?

Summary

Has just read GA’s article in Fortnightly Review ["A problem of human evolution", 31 (1879): 778–86]. GA’s views very probable. Something wonderful to hear anyone defending sexual selection.

Summary

CD agrees entirely with EK’s proposal. Has collected a good deal of material. Useless to hunt for correspondence between Dr Darwin and Samuel Johnson. They met only once and hated one another. Dr Darwin is said to have taken Henry Brooke, who published a poem entitled "Universal beauty", as a model.