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To Edouard Claparède1   [c. 16 April 1862]2

Dear Sir

I thank you sincerely for sending me your excellent Review;3 & for the generous & most kind manner in which you have spoken of my views.— I have read a great many critiques & abstracts of my Book; but I cannot remember one written with so much vigour & clearness & with so full an appreciation of the bearing of all the leading points. It is admirably done; & could have been so done only by one who entered on the subject with spirit, as well as with knowledge.—4 I have been particularly struck by the eloquence of the latter portion of your article.—5 You will have helped much in spreading in France sound views (as I hope & believe they are) on the descent and modification of species; & I have been told that my views were more unpopular in France even than in England; in Germany naturalists are beginning with some rapidity to adopt them.—6

Pray accept my sincere thanks & respects & believe me Dear Sir | Yours very faithfully

Footnotes

1
The recipient is identified by CD’s description of the review, which corresponds to Claparède 1861 (see nn. 3–5, below).
2
The date is conjectured from the relationship to the letter to C. E. Brown-Séquard, 16 April [1862] (see n. 3, below), and to the letter from Edouard Claparède, 6 September 1862.
3
Claparède 1861. See letter to C. E. Brown-Séquard, 16 April [1862] and n. 5. There is an annotated copy of the review in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
4
In the letter to George Bentham, 15 April [1863] (Correspondence vol. 11), CD singled out Claparède’s review of Origin as one of the best, reporting that it was ‘important as coming from so good an observer, as Claparède.’
5
In the first part of his review, Claparède described the main tenets of CD’s theory of natural selection, showing how the theory solved a number of problems in natural history; the latter part discussed CD’s responses to possible objections to the theory.
6
On the reception of natural selection in Germany, see, for example, Correspondence vol. 9, letter from Hugh Falconer, 23 June 1861, and letter to John Murray, 10 September [1861].

Bibliography

Claparède, Edouard. 1861. M. Darwin et sa théorie de la formation des espèces. Revue Germanique Française & étrangère 16: 523–59; 17: 232–63.

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

Summary

Thanks correspondent for his excellent review [of French edition of Origin (1862)], which he feels will help the spread of his views in France.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4371
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Jean Louis René Antoine Edouard (Edouard) Claparède
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 96: 17
Physical description
ADraft 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4371,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4371.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10

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