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From J. D. Hooker   [after 17 June 1865]1

Dear Darwin

“Kaye’s Indian Mutiny”2 is the best I believe; but I have not read it.

My wife is I think really improving,3 & has been downstairs. I am so glad you liked Huxleys letter4   I thought it sensible shrewd witty & full of honest good feeling. I am not an admirer of Kingsley’s but am glad he has the sense to understand you5

If Etty lets the Gooseberry season go bye without inviting me I will kill her.6

I have no news. Dont forget Tylor’s book.7

Ever Yr aff | J. D. Hooker

Footnotes

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865].
2
The reference is to the first volume of Kaye 1864–76. CD had asked Hooker to recommend a good history of the Indian Mutiny, after having read a novel set against the background of the uprising (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865] and n. 9).
3
Frances Harriet Hooker had recently suffered a miscarriage; see letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 June 1865] and n. 5.
6
Hooker refers to Henrietta Emma Darwin. Hooker’s fondness for visiting during gooseberry season was something of a family joke. Francis Darwin, in a manuscript of reminiscences about his father, wrote (DAR 140.3; for typescript, see Robert Brown 1996, p. 8): Hooker too used to send him beautiful ones [bananas] from Kew— They were christened “Kew gooseberries” being I suppose I think considered a return for the gooseberry feast for which Hooker was supposed to come every year to Down See also letter from J. D. Hooker, [20 January 1865], and letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 [May? 1867], Calendar no. 5552).

Bibliography

Brown, Robert. 1996. The complete edited manuscript of Francis Darwin’s preliminary draft of the "Reminiscences of my father’s everyday life". [Typescript.]

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.

Kaye, John William. 1864–76. A history of the Sepoy War in India 1857–1858. 3 vols. London: W. H. Allen & Co.

Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1865. Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization. London: John Murray.

Summary

Recommends J. W. Kayes’ book [History of the Sepoy War, vol. 1 (1864)].

Wife improving.

Glad CD liked Huxley’s letter.

Not an admirer of Kingsley.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4859
From
Joseph Dalton Hooker
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 102: 29
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4859,” accessed on 14 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4859.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13

letter

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