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Darwin Correspondence Project

From W. S. Dallas   19 September 1879

Geological Society, | Burlington House, W.

19 Sept. 1879

Dear Mr. Darwin

Many thanks for the proof, which I will keep, as you suggest, until Dr. Krause returns the one I have sent to him.—1 I called his attention to the passage on p. 171,— my note upon it was not intended to be printed, but only in order that the question might not be lost sight of.— Your suggested alteration makes all right,— we shall see what he proposes.—2

I notice that a little quotation from the “Botanic Garden” is considerably altered,— there must be some difference in the editions, & yet I thought the copy which I borrowed from the Linnean Society was the second.—3 The additional words “and adds” inserted in a subsequent page were in my MS. but seem to have been struck out by somebody as unnecessary, & the cancelling line afterwards smudged as if to rub it out, but the printers have taken it as cancelled.—

Would not the title of this translated part of your book read better:–

The Scientific Labours

of

Erasmus Darwin.–?

I think there is a better word than either works or labours but I can’t hit upon it.—4

Believe me | Yours very truly | W. S. Dallas

Footnotes

CD’s letter to Dallas has not been found. Dallas had asked CD to check and return the corrected proofs of the translation of Ernst Krause’s essay for Erasmus Darwin (see letter from W. S. Dallas, 15 and 16 September 1879).
In Erasmus Darwin, p. 171, Krause discussed the resemblance of the offspring to the parent, and Erasmus Darwin’s view that the embryo was produced by the father, while the mother provided the ‘nutritive fluid’; Dallas had queried the translation of ‘parent’ as ‘father’ (see letter from Ernst Krause, 2 October 1879).
The botanic garden; a poem in two parts (E. Darwin 1789–91) had a complex publication history, with multiple editions of each part printed separately during the 1790s (for a list of the editions, see King-Hele 1999, p. 401).
Krause’s essay in Erasmus Darwin was titled ‘The scientific works of Erasmus Darwin’.

Bibliography

Darwin, Erasmus. 1789–91. The botanic garden; a poem, in two parts. Pt 1. The economy of vegetation. London: J. Johnson. 1791. Pt 2. The loves of the plants. With philosophical notes. Lichfield: J. Jackson. 1789.

Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.

King-Hele, Desmond. 1999. Erasmus Darwin. A life of unequalled achievement. London: Giles de la Mare Publishers.

Summary

Final decisions about the printing of Erasmus Darwin.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12235
From
William Sweetland Dallas
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Geological Society
Source of text
DAR 99: 125–6
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12235,” accessed on 16 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12235.xml

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