skip to content
Home

Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. E. A. Axon   7 April [1882]1

Down, Beckenham, Kent

April 7,

Dear Sir

I have been interested and amused by the Essay which you have been so kind as to send me, and which shows a wonderful amount of research.2 Your plan of a Journal seems an excellent one and I wish it success, but I cannot offer to contribute an article to it, for I have made it a rule not to write in Periodicals, except to communicate new facts.3 I have just lately refused two applications and during the last few years a large number of similar ones. I have given the same answer to all, and I must keep to my resolution, otherwise the very little strength which I still possess would all be frittered away. Pray excuse me and believe me that I honour you for undertaking the work.

Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the publication date of the first issue of the Field Naturalist and Scientific Student (see n. 3, below).
2
The essay was probably Axon’s statement about founding a new periodical titled Field Naturalist and Scientific Student (later published at the beginning of the first issue), in which Axon expressed his hope that the journal would be inclusive and that its contents would be ‘exact without being technical’, ‘chatty without being trivial’, and would ‘not neglect the the little things of nature even for grander phenomena and more intricate problems’ ([Axon] 1882).
3
The first issue of the Field Naturalist and Scientific Student was published on 1 June 1882. The periodical folded after the ninth issue in early 1883, after which all the issues were published in a single volume; this did not have the opening statement by Axon (see n. 2, above), but instead a short preface explained the demise of the journal and stated that it had commenced with ‘the good wishes of the late Charles Darwin’ (Axon ed. 1883, Preface).

Bibliography

[Axon, William E. A.] 1882. The Field Naturalist and Scientific Student. A medium of intercommunication. Field Naturalist and Scientific Student no. 1.

Axon, William E. A., ed. 1883. The Field Naturalist, and Scientific Student. (Complete.) Manchester: Abel Heywood & Son. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.

Summary

Cannot contribute article to new journal [Field Naturalist and Scientific Student]. Writes only to communicate new facts.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13762
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Edward Armytage Axon
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 143: 26
Physical description
C 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13762,” accessed on 5 June 2025, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13762.xml

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
darwin@lib.cam.ac.uk

© University of Cambridge 2022

Copyright declaration

Privacy policy

Website by Surface Impression

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge