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Volume 29 (1881) is published!

Summary

In October 1881, Darwin published his last book, The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits. A slim volume on a subject that many people could understand and on which they had their own opinions, it went…

Matches: 14 hits

  • of his book on earthworms, published in October, was a boost. His 5-year-old grandson Bernard, who
  • the action of worms: with observations on their habits. A slim volume on a subject that many
  • as for its success.                   Letter to ABBuckley, 4 January 1881 In
  • had been successful. Wallaces friend Arabella Burton Buckley had suggested the possibility, and
  • … ‘There is no one living to whose kindness in such a matter I could feel myself indebted with so much
  • The Darwins spent June in the Lake District, a family holiday which Darwin contemplated with his
  • Marianne North visited in July: ‘He sat on the grass under a shady tree, and talked deliciously on
  • paintings I brought down for him to see, showing in a few words how much more he knew about the
  • seen them and he had not.’ My luncheon was a failure, as there was an immense crowd of
  • … [1881] In early August, Darwin attended a luncheon at the International Medical
  • it impossible to refuse. He found the idea of sitting for a portrait commissioned by the Linnean
  • son-in-law. The death of my brother Erasmus is a very heavy loss to all of us in this
  • Nor have I ever known any one more pleasant. It was always a very great pleasure to talk with him on
  • …                              Letter t o BJSulivan, 1 December 1881     …

Darwin in letters, 1881: Old friends and new admirers

Summary

In May 1881, Darwin, one of the best-known celebrities in England if not the world, began writing about all the eminent men he had met. He embarked on this task, which formed an addition to his autobiography, because he had nothing else to do. He had…

Matches: 22 hits

  • restrict himself tomore confined & easy subjects’. A month earlier, on 23 February , he had
  • of his book on earthworms, published in October, was a boost. His 5-year-old grandson Bernard, who
  • on 8 December. Krause countered Butlers accusations in a review of Unconscious memory in
  • Kosmos article should be translated and also appear in a British journal. Darwin could see that
  • seasoned journalist and editor Leslie Stephen. There wasa hopeless division of opinionwithin the
  • … , hoping that he did not think themall gone mad on such a small matter’. The following day, Darwin
  • avoid being pained at being publicly called in ones old age a liar, owing to having unintentionally
  • avoided, even though he wishedto give Somebody such  a slap in the face as he would have cause to
  • try to banish the thoughts, & say to myself that so good a judge, as Leslie Stephen thinks
  • published it in Nature , and George Romanes wrote such a savage review of Unconscious memory
  • Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, had received a civil list pension. ‘I hardly ever
  • heard on 8 January that Wallace would receive £200 a yearhe wrote to Darwin, ‘I congratulate
  • an opinion of thelittle scientific workhe had done. Buckleys delight was evident when she
  • of pleasure in the early months of 1881. This book had been a major undertaking for both Darwin and
  • other books, Movement in plants did not generate a large correspondence. It was mainly those who
  • Germany; and I doubted much whether I was not quite as great a sinner as those whom I have blamed.’ …
  • he was sending his printersin 3 or 4 weeks the M.S. of a quite small book of little moment’. …
  • hadmuch bigger souls than anyone wd suppose’, and a month later he was confident enough to state: …
  • to observe what passed in my own mind when I did the work of a worm’, he explained, before joking
  • patted one of the Fuegians on the shoulder (l etter from B. J. Sulivan, 18 March 1881 ). …
  • expressing their wish to visit Darwin ( letter from E. B. Aveling, 27 September [1881] ). …
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica , telling the author, Arabella Buckley, on 11 July that he regretted

List of correspondents

Summary

Below is a list of Darwin's correspondents with the number of letters for each one. Click on a name to see the letters Darwin exchanged with that correspondent.    "A child of God" (1) Abberley,…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Below is a list of Darwin's correspondents with the number of letters for each one. …

Origin is 160; Darwin's 1875 letters now online

Summary

To mark the 160th anniversary of the publication of Origin of species, the full transcripts and footnotes of nearly 650 letters to and from Charles Darwin in 1875 are published online for the first time. You can read about Darwin's life in 1875…

Matches: 12 hits

  • Darwin's life in 1875 through his letters and see a full list of the letters . The
  • In April, he was busy in London, drafting and circulating a bill to regulate vivisection, hoping to
  • ways to the Drosera secretion. In 1875, Klein was a very controversial witness at the Royal
  • at allfor the sufferings of animals when performing a painful experiment. Huxley told Darwin about
  • disgusted at what you say about Klein. I am very glad he is a foreigner; but it is most painful as I
  • on these plants since 1859. The highly technical work was a surprising success, with 3000 copies
  • taste. However, by the autumn he was able to start writing a new book, Cross and self
  • 4 January [1875] ) Agitation for a law controlling vivisection came to a head in 1875, …
  • former vicarthat they had succeeded in again setting up a winter reading room for working men, …
  • wrote encouragingly to his son George, who was engaged on a number of lines of research in physics
  • brothers with scientific instruments: in 1875, he designed a hygrometer. Almost every
  • more controversy. He was incensed that Edwin Ray Lankester, a promising young zoologist, was

Darwin in letters, 1880: Sensitivity and worms

Summary

‘My heart & soul care for worms & nothing else in this world,’ Darwin wrote to his old Shrewsbury friend Henry Johnson on 14 November 1880. Darwin became fully devoted to earthworms in the spring of the year, just after finishing the manuscript of…

Matches: 16 hits

  • … and observations. Financial support for science was a recurring issue, as Darwin tried to secure a …
  • … life and other bits of family history. On 1 January , a distant cousin, Charles Harrison Tindal, …
  • … about the eagerness of the two learned divines to see a pig’s body opened is very amusing’, Darwin …
  • … to C. H. Tindal, 5 January 1880 ). Darwin had employed a genealogist, Joseph Lemuel Chester, to …
  • … away in archives and registry offices, and produced a twenty-page history of the Darwin family …
  • … obliged to meet some of the distant relations and conciliate a few whose ancestors had not featured …
  • … in to the thick of all these cousins & think I must pay a round of visits.’ One cousin, Reginald …
  • … revised the essay for the book, partly in order to address a publication by Samuel Butler, …
  • … of the viper in the tone of the letter, I fancy he wants a grievance to hang an article upon’ ( …
  • … natural selection and the apparent lack of purpose that such a theory implied. He found inspiration …
  • … 1880 ). He stated his case in the Athen æum , a leading literary weekly. He accused Darwin of …
  • … and uncertain about what to do. He drafted two versions of a letter to the Athen æum , sending …
  • … ). ‘The world will only know … that you & Butler had a controversy in which he will have the …
  • … whatever … I am astounded at Butler—who I thought was a gentleman … Has Mivart bitten him & …
  • … text without acknowledgment. Krause wanted to mount a defence, squashing the ‘mosquito inflated to …
  • … some of the difficulties Darwin faced in engaging a critic outside the medium of correspondence or …

Suggested reading

Summary

  Contemporary writing Anon., The English matron: A practical manual for young wives, (London, 1846). Anon., The English gentlewoman: A practical manual for young ladies on their entrance to society, (Third edition, London, 1846). Becker, L. E.…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … writing Anon.,  The English matron :  A practical manual for young wives , (London, …
  • … Browne, J.  Darwin’s Origin of species : A b iography , (London, 2006),  chapter 4: …

Referencing women’s work

Summary

Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but whether and how they were acknowledged in print involved complex considerations of social standing, professional standing, and personal preference.…

Matches: 15 hits

  • Animal intelligence referred to the contributions of 'a young lady, who objects to her name
  • Letter 1113 - Darwin to Whitby, M. A. T., [2 September 1847] Darwin questions Mrs. …
  • have felt uncomfortable about being acknowledged publicly as a science critic. Letter
  • asks Charles Lyell for advice on how to reference Arabella Buckleys observations of pigeons, which
  • through Sir C. Lyellor received fromMiss. B”. Letter 7060 - Wedgwood, F. J. …
  • by numerous women of their infants are not referenced in a section of Expression onthe
  • was novelist Elizabeth Gaskell for her description of a crying baby in Mary Barton. …
  • about how best to reference her husbands contribution to a chapter on music in Expression
  • Mould and Earthworms but she was identified only asa lady, on whose accuracy I can implicitly
  • near his house. Letter 8168 - Ruck, A. R. to Darwin, H., [20 January 1872] …
  • activity undertaken around Machynlleth in Wales. She has dug a number of trenches, measured soil
  • fields of North Wales. Letter 8193 - Ruck, A. R. to Darwin, H., [1 February
  • … . Letter 8224 - Darwin to Ruck, A. R., [24 February 1872] Darwin asks
  • Vegetable Mould but she was identified only asa lady, on whose accuracy I can implicitly
  • with information on worm-castings and worm activities at a house in St Tibbs Row. Darwin proudly

Darwin in letters, 1872: Job done?

Summary

'My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, 'is so nearly closed. . .  What little more I can do, shall be chiefly new work’, and the tenor of his correspondence throughout the year is one of wistful reminiscence, coupled with a keen eye…

Matches: 27 hits

  • the year is one of wistful reminiscence, coupled with a keen eye to the crafting of his legacy.  …
  • animals  in November, the year marked the culmination of a programme of publication that can be
  • in relation to sex , published in 1871, these books brought a strong if deceptive sense of a job
  • himself without writing anything more on 'so difficult a subject, as evolution’ ( letter to A. …
  • earthworms in shaping the environmentThe former led to a series of books and papers, and the
  • years before. In his private life also, Darwin was in a nostalgic frame of mind, picking up
  • June the previous yearHe intended the edition to be a popular one that would bring his most
  • should be affordable: ‘do you not think 6s is too dear for a cheap Edit? Would not 5s be better? . . …
  • translations of both  Descent  and  Origin   was a particular frustration: `I naturally desire
  • letter to St GJMivart,  11 January [1872] ). A worsening breach The criticisms
  • in the sixth edition were those made by Mivart himself. In a new chapter onmiscellaneous
  • of Whale  & duck  most beautiful’ ( letter from ARWallace, 3 March 1872 ). …
  • Mivart was among those who wrote in January to wish Darwin a happy new year, before the month was
  • break down. Mivarts book had been followed by a highly critical and anonymously published review of
  • his defence, and along with his good wishes Mivart enclosed a copy of an article replying to Thomas
  • to send another that had been written in response to a disparaging paper by the American
  • my views & conclusions; & I hope I am not quite so bigotted a person as I am made to appear’ …
  • not to thank Mivart for his letterHe promised to send a copy of the new edition of  Origin  …
  • mind, `chiefly perhaps because I do it badly’ ( letter to ARWallace, 3 August [1872] ).  …
  • Darwin.  ‘At present natural selection is somewhat under a cloud’, he wrote to JETaylor on 13
  • Dohrn on 3 February that Mivarts book had 'produced a great effect in England’.  Dohrn, who
  • even being discussed from the pulpit: ‘Nothing brings out a crowd on Sunday’, she exclaimed, &#039
  • from Mary Treat, 13 December 1872 ).  'Here is a bee' Darwin discussed the
  • … [before 5 May 1872] ).  Müller had sent him a paper that delighted him by applying the
  • stationed five or six of my children, each close to a buzzing place, he wrote, ‘and told the one
  • on the origins of music provided by her husband, Richard Buckley Litchfield ( letter to HE. …
  • responded Darwin, 'feel as old as Methuselah’ ( letter to BJSulivan, 24 January 1872 ), a

Darwin in letters, 1871: An emptying nest

Summary

The year 1871 was an extremely busy and productive one for Darwin, with the publication in February of his long-awaited book on human evolution, Descent of man. The other main preoccupation of the year was the preparation of his manuscript on expression.…

Matches: 16 hits

  • … the whole of the confounded book out of my head’. But  a large proportion of Darwin’s time for the …
  • … , ‘for as my son Frank says, “you treat man in such a bare-faced manner.”‘ The most lively debate …
  • … of illustrating his book. The year  also brought a significant milestone for the family, as …
  • … as feelings of hope for her future happiness combined with a sense of loss. Descent of man …
  • … [of] the facts, during several past years, has been a great amusement’. Darwin had been working …
  • … in the late 1830s. In recent years, Darwin had collected a wealth of material on sexual selection …
  • … published on 24 February, and all 2500 copies were sold in a week. ‘Murray says he is “torn to …
  • … three more printings, 2000 in March, 2000 in April, and a further 1000 in December. The level of …
  • … and the speed at which they appeared. Arrangements for a US edition had been in place since December …
  • … Darwin wrote to Murray on 20 March 1871 , ‘It is quite a grand trade to be a scientific man.’ …
  • … 19, Appendix IV). Four of Darwin’s five sons received a copy, and his daughter Henrietta, who had …
  • … William Winwood Reade thought the publication of so bold a theory would ‘encourage many in their …
  • … almost thou persuadest me to have been “a hairy quadruped, of arboreal habits, furnished with a tail …
  • … to Darwin with small corrections or contributions. A German emigrant in St Louis claimed that …
  • … 1871 ). Darwin thought he might use the photographs in a second edition of  Descent , and …
  • … for part of 1871 . Henrietta’s husband was Richard Buckley Litchfield, a barrister, philanthropist, …
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