Correspondence of Charles Darwin vol. 18 now published
Volume 18 of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, containing letters from 1870 and a supplement of more than a hundred letters from earlier years, was published by Cambridge University Press in April 2010.
During 1870, Darwin was in the final stages of writing and revising Descent of man, and continued working on his next book, Expression of the emotions in man and animals. St George Jackson Mivart and Alfred Russel Wallace published criticisms of the theory of natural selection. Darwin was offered an honorary degree by Oxford University, was nominated for corresponding membership of the French Academy of Science, and was elected an associate member of the Belgian Academy. Translation of his works in Europe was disrupted by the onset of the Franco-Prussian war, but his translators continued to work with a will whenever they could.
Letters from this volume will be made available through this website in due course – by agreement with the publisher this will be four years from publication. In the meantime, summaries of all the letters are available on this site, and the book can be ordered through libraries and booksellers.
Read the introduction to volume 18 here.