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From E. A. Darwin   11 March [1879]1

11 March

Dear Charles

I think you might send Kosmos at once to Mr Dallas as Krause is quite sure to give his permission with thanks.2 I dont think being published in Fortnightly would have the same monumental effect as an independent book & I’m afraid that it is not large enough for one of Morley’s series even if it suited him.3 Have I only dreamt or have I seen that Huxley is undertaking a series of Lives of Men of Science?4

What I wanted to know about the Kosmos title page was whether that about the Weltanschauung was peculiar to this number as I thought Kosmos was Science generally without any special application to the Evolution Theory.5

E A D

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Ernst Krause, 9 March 1879.
2
See letter to Ernst Krause, 9 March 1879; CD had requested Krause’s permission to have William Sweetland Dallas translate Krause’s sketch of the life of Erasmus Darwin published in Kosmos (Krause 1879a).
3
John Morley, the editor of the Fortnightly Review, often serialised longer works over several issues of the periodical (see, for example, Bagehot 1867–72, later published as Bagehot 1872).
4
Thomas Henry Huxley had recently written a biography of David Hume (T. H. Huxley 1879) for a series edited by Morley on English men of letters; he then contemplated editing a similar series on men of science but the project never materialised (see A. Desmond 1994–7, 2: 118).
5
See letter from E. A. Darwin, 8 March [1879] and n. 6. The journal Kosmos had been founded with a view to promoting research related to Darwinian evolutionary theory; for more on the founding of the journal, see Daum 1998, pp. 359–69 (see also Correspondence vol. 25, letter from Ernst Krause, 11 March 1877).

Bibliography

Bagehot, Walter. 1867–72. Physics and politics. Fortnightly Review n.s. 2 (1867): 518–38; 3 (1868): 452–71; 6 (1869): 58–72; 10 (1871): 696–717; 11 (1872): 46–70.

Bagehot, Walter. 1872. Physics and politics: or thoughts on the application of the principles of ‘natural selection’ and ‘inheritance’ to political society. London: Henry S. King. [Facsimile edition, Westmead: Gregg International Publishers, 1971.]

Daum, Andreas W. 1998. Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert: bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Offentlichkeit, 1848–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg.

Desmond, Adrian. 1994–7. Huxley. 2 vols. London: Michael Joseph.

Huxley, Thomas Henry. 1879. Hume. London: Macmillan and Co.

Krause, Ernst. 1879a. Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 397–424.

Summary

Suggests CD send Kosmos to W. S. Dallas as Krause will surely give his permission for translation.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11923
From
Erasmus Alvey Darwin
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
unstated
Source of text
DAR 105: 108–9
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11923,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11923.xml

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
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