From Hermanus Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen 3 November 1871
Delft
3 November 1871
Dear Sir!
I have very much satisfaction from my translation of your “Descent of Man”, of which already more then six hundred have been sold, what is immense for so little a country, as Holland is.1 The translation and my annotations on your work have been criticized in a very benevolent manner in some of our Reviews and Periodic papers.2 Now I hear, that in England a new work of your hand is printed and I should be very glad to translate also your new work in our language.3 Therefore I beg you to sent me the first 16 pages, the last sixteen pages and the printed title, because it is necessary in this country to show them to a special commission in order to obtain the right of translation. If you will not do this, every bookseller or editor, who can show your work to this commission when it is printed, obtains the right of translation and can give it to every translator he wishes, and in this manner it would be very possible that this translator would not be the same as the translator of your “Descent of man”.
I propose myself to make this winter or in the spring of 1872 an excursion to the United States of N. A. and if I could obtain there employment in a museum or elsewhere as naturalist, I would be very inclined to emigrate and to remain there.4 I will try to receive some introductions for Mr Agassiz5 and other American professors from my Dutch friends and acquaintances, but I believe that an introduction from your part would be still more profitable for me. If you would be so very kind to give me an introduction to some of the American naturalists you would very much oblige me. I think to go also to California, where a university is established in Oakland, not far from S. Francisco.6 I think that, when I lived in a country, where nothing as English was spoken, I soon would learn to speak and to understand it (when spoken, this being quite an other affair as when written) much better than I now do.
Believe me, Dear Sir! | Yours sincerely | H Hartogh Heijs v. Zouteveen
Footnotes
Bibliography
Calendar: A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. With supplement. 2d edition. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Helfand, Harvey Zane. 2002. University of California, Berkeley: an architectural tour and photographs. New York: Princeton University Press.
Summary
Wishes to translate Expression into Dutch.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8049
- From
- Hermanus Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Delft
- Source of text
- DAR 184: 16
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8049,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8049.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19