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To A. R. Wallace   24 [May 1862]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

24th

My dear Mr Wallace

I write one line to thank you for your note & to say that the B. of Oxford wrote the Quarterly R (paid £60), aided by Owen. In the Edinburgh Owen no doubt praised himself.2 Mr. Maw’s Review in Zoologist is one of the best; & staggered me in part, for I did not see the sophistry of parts—3 I could lend you any which you might wish to see; but you would soon be tired. Hopkins in Fraser & Pictet are two of the best.—4

I am glad you approve of my little Orchid Book; but it has not been worth, I fear, the 10 months it has cost me: it was a hobby horse & so beguiled me.—5

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering from Boils; I have often had fearful crops: I hope that the Doctors are right in saying that they are serviceable.—6

How puzzled you must be to know what to begin at.7 You will do grand work, I do not doubt.— My health is, & always will be, very poor: I am that miserable animal a regular valetudinarian.—

Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

Footnotes

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter from A. R. Wallace, 23 May 1862.
3
Maw 1861. Soon after the review’s publication, CD had corresponded with George Maw about some of the points it raised (see Correspondence vol. 9, letter to George Maw, 19 July [1861], and letter from George Maw, 27 August [1861]).
4
Hopkins 1860 and Pictet de la Rive 1860. For CD’s correspondence about these reviews, see Correspondence vol. 8.
5
CD had sent Wallace a presentation copy of Orchids (see letter from A. R. Wallace, 23 May 1862, and Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV). According to his journal, CD began work on Orchids in July 1861 and completed it at the end of April 1862 (see Correspondence vol. 9, Appendix II, and this volume, Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix II).
6
Henry Holland, one of the physicians consulted by the Darwin family, believed that abscesses or other ‘affections of the skin’ heralded the end of a disease, giving ‘relief to the system’ (see Holland 1855, p. 143).
7
Wallace had recently returned to England having spent eight years in south-east Asia (Wallace 1905, 1: 385).

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Hopkins, William. 1860. Physical theories of the phenomena of life. Fraser’s Magazine 61: 739–52; 62: 74–90.

Maw, George. 1861. The pavements of Uriconium. Journal of the British Archaeological Association 17: 100–10.

Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.

Pictet de la Rive, François Jules. 1860. Sur l’origine de l’espèce par Charles Darwin. Bibliothèque universelle. Revue suisse et étrangère n.s. 7: 233–55.

Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1905. My life: a record of events and opinions. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall.

[Wilberforce, Samuel.] 1860. [Review of Origin.] Quarterly Review 108: 225–64.

Summary

Quarterly Review piece written by Bishop Wilberforce with aid of Owen.

Other reviews mentioned.

Health.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3570
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Alfred Russel Wallace
Sent from
Down
Source of text
The British Library (Add MS 46434: 25)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3570,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3570.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10

letter

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