To John Lindley 14 September [1862]1
Cliff Cottage | Bournemouth
Sept. 14th
My dear Lindley
I suppose that it is a sin against propriety, but I really cannot resist expressing my cordial thanks for your most kind review of my book.2 One quarter of the praise which you have bestowed on it, coming from you to whom I have long looked up, would I assure you have much more than satisfied me. Considering that you are the great authority on orchids the cordial tone of your article strikes me as something much more than merely kind. I was led to publish the book almost by accident; for whilst I made all the earlier observations I had not the least intention of publishing even a separate paper on the subject, but was led to it by finding that some persons were interested by what I showed them of our British species. And you in one of your letters when I had looked at only two or 3 foreigners, encouraged me, & to a great extent led me to go on.—3
Accept my cordial thanks & forgive me for troubling you.
Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
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.
Summary
Thanks JL for review [of Orchids, Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863]; CD published almost by accident, having been led on in part by encouragement from JL.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3723
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Lindley
- Sent from
- Bournemouth
- Source of text
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Lindley letters, A–K: 192)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3723,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3723.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10