To W. D. Fox [16 November 1859]
Summary
News of his health and the water-cure establishment.
[Origin] "my weariful book on Species" has been sent to WDF, who will not agree with it. Hooker is a convert, and Lyell is "staggered".
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | [16 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 124) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2533 |
From Charles Kingsley 18 November 1859
Summary
Will judge CD’s book [Origin] free from two superstitions: the dogma of the permanent species and the need of an act of intervention to bring change.
Author: | Charles Kingsley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B7–8 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2534 |
To W. B. Carpenter 18 November [1859]
Summary
Comments on WBC’s response to the Origin. Hopes he will review it. Acceptance will depend more on men like WBC, with well-established reputations, than on his own writings.
"Lyell thinks the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record not exaggerated."
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Benjamin Carpenter |
Date: | 18 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.6: 1 (EH 88205918) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2535 |
To W. B. Carpenter 19 November [1859]
Summary
Asks to hear WBC’s conclusion about the Origin when he has read it all. Knows only one believer so far – J. D. Hooker. Sometimes feels frightened that he may be a monomaniac.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Benjamin Carpenter |
Date: | 19 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.6: 2 (EH 88205919) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2536 |
To J. D. Hooker [20 November 1859]
Summary
Curious about author of review of Origin in Athenæum.
W. B. Carpenter has written and sounds converted, as has Quatrefages [de Bréau], who will "go a long way with" CD.
Has been ill and thus had time to brood about reception of book.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [20 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 27 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2537 |
From J. D. Hooker [21 November 1859]
Summary
JDH’s congratulations on Origin.
Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.
Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.
JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 135–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2539 |
From H. C. Watson 21 November [1859]
Summary
Believes natural selection will become recognised as an established truth in science, though it will shock the ideas of many men.
Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B9–10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2540 |
From Charles Lyell 21 November 1859
Summary
Questions CD’s view in Origin that domestic dogs are not descended from a single stock. Occasional crossings of domestic stock with wild species could explain cases of reversion towards wild specific forms. CD’s views on hybridity do not then have to be contradicted in constructing an ancestral stock.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/4: 195–7) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2540A |
To J. D. Hooker [22 November 1859]
Summary
CD hopes Woodward was not the Athenæum reviewer. "The manner in which he drags in immortality, & sets the Priests at me … is base".
JDH has made CD feel he can "face a score of savage reviewers".
H. C. Watson has written to him in tremendous praise of the Origin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | [22 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 115: 26 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2542 |
To Charles Lyell 23 November [1859]
Summary
Thanks CL for his decision to accept CD’s "doctrine of modification" [in Elements of geology, 6th ed. (1865)]. Believes it "morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong". Does not think CL’s decision will injure his works.
Thinks CL overrates importance of multiple origin of dogs.
Mentions sending copy of Origin to Herschel. Asks CL about Herschel’s reaction.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 23 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.176) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2543 |
From T. H. Huxley 23 November 1859
Summary
Has just finished Origin. CD has demonstrated a true cause for the production of species.
CD has loaded himself with unnecessary difficulty in adopting natura non facit saltum.
Author: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B11–13 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2544 |
From E. A. Darwin 23 November [1859]
Summary
Writes of "the Dr’s" [Henry Holland’s] mixed reactions to the book.
Adds a personal opinion, "it is the most interesting book I ever read".
Author: | Erasmus Alvey Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B14–15 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2545 |
To T. C. Eyton 24 [November 1859]
Summary
Mentions reactions to Origin. It will "horrify and disgust" TCE.
Some authorities approve more than CD expected.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Campbell Eyton |
Date: | 24 [Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.177) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2546 |
To Charles Lyell 24 [November 1859]
Summary
Sales of Origin.
Discusses revisions for second edition. Mentions possible French translation.
Views of Quatrefages [de Bréau].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 24 [Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.178) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2547 |
From Adam Sedgwick 24 November 1859
Summary
Thanks CD for the Origin; AS has read the book "with more pain than pleasure". CD has deserted "the true method of induction" and many of his wide conclusions are "based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved". His "grand principle – natural selection" is "but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts".
Author: | Adam Sedgwick |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 24 Nov 1859 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: B17–18 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2548 |
To John Murray 24 November [1859]
Summary
CD is astonished at sale of Origin [to booksellers].
Arranges to start new edition immediately. Cannot change much [while at Ilkley Wells], nor work rapidly because of health. Relieved that JM has no cause to repent of publishing Origin.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Murray |
Date: | 24 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms.42152 ff.70–71) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2549 |
To T. H. Huxley 24 [November 1859]
Summary
Murray has sold out Origin; wants a new edition immediately.
Asks THH to check whether Geoffroy de St Hilaire is correct [form of name].
Would be grateful for THH’s impressions on the truth of natural selection.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 24 [Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 261.11: 4 (EH 88205939) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2550 |
From Charles Lyell [22 November 1859]
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [22 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.11: 139 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2551 |
To Charles Lyell 25 [November 1859]
Summary
Discusses corrections for second edition [of Origin]. Will leave out the reference to whale and bear. Discusses pheasant crosses. Success of the book.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 25 [Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.179) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2552 |
To T. H. Huxley 25 November [1859]
Summary
THH’s letter about the Origin makes CD feel like a Catholic who has received extreme unction. Can now sing nunc dimittis. Had determined to abide by judgment of Lyell, Hooker, and THH.
Problem of how variations arise at all troubles him also.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Henry Huxley |
Date: | 25 Nov [1859] |
Classmark: | Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 72) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2553 |
letter | (53) |
Darwin, C. R. | (41) |
Lyell, Charles | (2) |
Watson, H. C. | (2) |
Darwin, E. A. | (1) |
Hill, Richard | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (12) |
Lyell, Charles | (5) |
Huxley, T. H. | (4) |
Murray, John (b) | (3) |
Phillips, John | (3) |
Darwin, C. R. | |
Lyell, Charles | (7) |
Huxley, T. H. | (5) |
Murray, John (b) | (4) |
Hooker, J. D. | (3) |
Phillips, John | (3) |
Sedgwick, Adam | (3) |
Blomefield, Leonard | (2) |
Carpenter, W. B. | (2) |
Jenyns, Leonard | (2) |
Kingsley, Charles | (2) |
Lubbock, John | (2) |
Owen, Richard | (2) |
Watson, H. C. | (2) |
Agassiz, Louis | (1) |
Candolle, Alphonse de | (1) |
Dana, J. D. | (1) |
Darwin, Caroline | (1) |
Darwin, E. A. | (1) |
Eyton, T. C. | (1) |
Falconer, Hugh | (1) |
Fox, W. D. | (1) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Henslow, J. S. | (1) |
Herschel, J. F. W. | (1) |
Hill, Richard | (1) |
Mull, Mathias | (1) |
Pictet de la Rive, F. J. | (1) |
Unidentified | (1) |
Wallace, A. R. | (1) |
Wedgwood, Caroline | (1) |