skip to content

Darwin Correspondence Project

Search: contains ""

400 Bad Request

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.


Apache Server at dcp-public.lib.cam.ac.uk Port 443
Search:
in keywords
9 Items

Darwin in letters, 1872: Job done?

Summary

'My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, 'is so nearly closed. . .  What little more I can do, shall be chiefly new work’, and the tenor of his correspondence throughout the year is one of wistful reminiscence, coupled with a keen eye…

Matches: 29 hits

  • … What little more I can do, shall be chiefly new work’ ( letter to Francis Galton, 8 November [1872] …
  • … anything more on 'so difficult a subject, as evolution’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace,  27 July …
  • … to spread my views’, he wrote to his publisher, John Murray, on 30 January , shortly after …
  • … best efforts, set the final price at 7 s.  6 d.  ( letter from R. F. Cooke, 12 February 1872 ) …
  • … condition as I can make it’, he wrote to the translator ( letter to J. J. Moulinié, 23 September …
  • … translation remained unpublished at the end of the year ( letter from C.-F. Reinwald, 23 November …
  • … to the comparative anatomist St George Jackson Mivart ( letter to St G. J. Mivart,  11 January …
  • … comparison of Whale  & duck  most beautiful’ ( letter from A. R. Wallace, 3 March 1872 ) …
  • … a person as I am made to appear’, complained Darwin ( letter to St G. J. Mivart, 5 January 1872 ). …
  • … Darwin would renounce `fundamental intellectual errors’ ( letter from St G. J. Mivart, 6 January …
  • … was silly enough to think he felt friendly towards me’ ( letter to St G. J. Mivart, 8 January [1872 …
  • … hoping for reconciliation, if only `in another world’ ( letter from St G. J. Mivart,  10 January …
  • … have been ungracious in him not to thank Mivart for his letter.  He promised to send a copy of the …
  • … partly in mind, `chiefly perhaps because I do it badly’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 3 August [1872] …
  • … is somewhat under a cloud’, he wrote to J. E. Taylor on 13 January , and he complained to the …
  • … Darwinism is to be the theme. Surely the world moves!’ ( letter from Mary Treat, 13 December 1872 …
  • … to find that Weismann accepted it at least in part ( letter to August Weismann, 5 April 1872 ). ‘I …
  • … few naturalists in England seem inclined to believe it’ ( letter to Herman Müller, [before 5 May …
  • … reached the buzzing place where I myself was standing’ ( letter to Hermann Müller, [before 5 May …
  • … ‘as for myself it is dreadful doing nothing’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 22 October [1872] ). He was …
  • … to stand closer (a serried mass) and to be more erect’ ( letter to Briton Riviere, 19 May [1872] ) …
  • … and amused rather than offended by `that clever book’ ( letter to J. M. Herbert, 21 November 1872 …
  • … Hooker’s cause was taken up by his friends, in particular John Lubbock and John Tyndall, as one …
  • … to Gladstone a week later ( enclosure to letter from John Lubbock to W. E. Gladstone, 20 June 1872 …
  • … photographic plates with his overseas publishers, and with John Murray’s assistant, the excitable …
  • … of the booksellers, encouraged an originally cautious John Murray to gamble on the book’s success: & …
  • … attractive dishes in his `Literary Banquet’ (letters from John Murray, 6 November [1872] and 9 …
  • … to supply comparative observations, and Darwin’s protégé John Scott, now employed as a curator in …
  • … a copy of  Expression  to another old Cambridge friend, John Maurice Herbert, who when they were …

Darwin’s reading notebooks

Summary

In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…

Matches: 26 hits

  • … [Reimarius 1760] The Highlands & Western Isl ds  letter to Sir W Scott [MacCulloch 1824
  • 1824] Humes Essay [?Hume 17412] J. Taylor Art of Dying [J. Taylor 1651] …
  • 183440]: In Portfolio ofabstracts34  —letter from Skuckard of books on Silk Worm
  • The Emigrant, Head [F. B. Head 1846] St. Johns Highlands [C. W. G. Saint John 1846] …
  • M rs  Frys Life [Fry 1847] Horace Walpoles letter to C t . of Ossory [Walpole 1848] …
  • B.M. 6. 6. Black Edin. Longman [Ramsay 1848] St. Johns Nat. Hist. of Sutherlanshire, Murray
  • News. by M r  Hicks [Hickson 1849] Published separately Taylor & Walton HeadedMalthus” …
  • Liebigs Lectures on Chemistry [Liebig 1851]. Sir John Davies. China during the War and Peace
  • Asiatic Society ]—contains very little Macleays letter to D r  Fleming [Macleay 1830] …
  • … [DAR 119: 2a] Scientific Memoirs pub. by Taylor [ Scientific Memoirs ] Mag. of
  • by Boswell [Boswell 1831] Philip Van Artevelde [H. Taylor 1834]. reread Macaulay Art. …
  • 1843] /Oct 1 st / 2 d  & 3 d  Vol Sept 5 W. Taylors life & Corresp. [Robberds
  • d . Series. vol 3. p. 1 to 312 30 th  Colquhoun (John) The Moor & the Loch [Colquhoun
  • Buffon [Milne-Edwards 183440]. March 5 th  St. Johns Highlands [Saint John 1846] 8
  • Tone Autobiography [Tone 1826] very amusing March 10 John Galt Autobiography [Galt 1833] poor
  • 1848] Madam Malguet [Torrens] 1848] —— Lives of John & Alex. Belthune [?Bethune 1840 and
  • English Poets [Thackeray 1853] Haydons Life by T. Taylor [Haydon 1853] Sir B. Lowes
  • … [Heer 1854].— Hooker has it.— Very important Hookers letter Jan. 1859 Yules Ava [Yule 1858] …
  • of the material from these portfolios is in DAR 205, the letter from William Edward Shuckard to
  • … ( Notebooks , pp. 31928). 55  The letter was addressed to Nicholas Aylward Vigors
  • to William Jackson Hooker. See  Correspondence  vol. 3, letter to J. D. Hooker, [5 or 12 November
  • 119: 21b Broughton, William Grant. 1832A letter in vindication of   the principles of
  • …   islands . London. *128: 172 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1812The friend; a series of
  • 1835Specimens of the table talk of the late   Samuel Taylor Coleridge . Edited by [Henry
  • … ——. 18369The literary remains of Samuel Taylor   Coleridge . Collected and edited by Henry
  • 9b Cottle, Joseph. 1847Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor   Coleridge and Robert Southey

3.16 Oscar Rejlander, photos

Summary

< Back to Introduction Darwin’s plans for the illustration of his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) led him to the Swedish-born painter and photographer, Oscar Gustaf Rejlander. Rejlander gave Darwin the notes that he had…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … London Photographic Society, February 12, 1863. Darwin’s letter to his daughter Henrietta of 20 …
  • … Eeles Dresser’s album of letters and autographs in the John Rylands Library, University of …

What did Darwin believe?

Summary

What did Darwin really believe about God? the Christian revelation? the implications of his theory of evolution for religious faith? These questions were asked again and again in the years following the publication of Origin of species (1859). They are…

Matches: 19 hits

  • … often seeking direction for their own. Mary Boole’s letter In December 1866 Darwin …
  • … of Science & the promises of religion. See the letter Boole, like a number …
  • … meeting point should still be far off. See the letter In his response to Boole …
  • … feeling. But he does not venture into such territory in this letter to a stranger. Emma …
  • … description of my state of mind. See the letter In this letter, Darwin is …
  • … & I cannot help being open with you. See the letter We know from Darwin’s …
  • … means so in eternity. There is a marked tension in Emma’s letter between reason and feeling, and …
  • … several leading Unitarian clergymen, James Martineau and John James Taylor, as well as the religious …
  • … as a guide to moral conduct, as in his remarks on Paul’s letter to Galatians, chapter six: ‘read …
  • … it derive from inner feelings or instincts? In a letter written to Charles several months …
  • … trying to learn the truth, you cannot be wrong … See the letter Yet she is concerned …
  • … by adopting … the first fashionable view. Letter from T. H. Huxley to H. A. Heathorn, …
  • … life. Huxley could not accept this, but Kingsley’s letter opened a line of communication that …
  • … conception of entire surrender to the will of God.’ (Letter from T. H. Huxley to C. Kingsley, …
  • … blows are everywhere necessary. See the letter Darwin is often portrayed as …
  • … potential allies and disturb old allegiances. Haeckel’s letter had been prompted by an admonition …
  • … of the truth of his own conclusions. See the letter Cautious style and self …
  • … of animals and plants under domestication  (London: John Murray). Darwin, Charles. 1871.  …
  • … of the genuineness of the gospels (Boston) Tayler, John James. Unitarian clergyman and …

Darwin in letters, 1869: Forward on all fronts

Summary

At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of  Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the…

Matches: 26 hits

  • … & I am sick of correcting’ ( Correspondence  vol. 16, letter to W. D. Fox, 12 December [1868 …
  • … Well it is a beginning, & that is something’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [22 January 1869] ). …
  • … made any blunders, as is very likely to be the case’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 January 1869 ). …
  • … than I now see is possible or probable’ (see also letter to A. R. Wallace, 22 January [1869] , …
  • … is strengthened by the facts in distribution’ ( letter to James Croll, 31 January [1869] ). Darwin …
  • … tropical species using Croll’s theory. In the same letter to Croll, Darwin had expressed …
  • … a very long period  before  the Cambrian formation’ ( letter to James Croll,  31 January [1869] …
  • … data to go by, but don’t think we have got that yet’ ( letter from James Croll, 4 February 1869 ). …
  • … I d  have been less deferential towards [Thomson]’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 19 March [1869] ). …
  • … completed revisions of the ‘everlasting old Origin’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 1 June [1869] ), he was …
  • … him however in his researches I would willingly do so’ ( letter from Robert Elliot to George …
  • … with his noisy courting of the female in the garden ( letter from Frederick Smith, 8 October 1869 …
  • … and amphibians, while Roland Trimen in South Africa and John Jenner Weir in London sent more …
  • … doubted her ability to recognise the different varieties ( letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 25 February …
  • … weary of everlasting males & females, cocks & hens.—’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 November …
  • … with much more of the same description’ ( enclosure to letter from Henry Maudsley, 20 May 1869 ). …
  • … in an additional & proximate cause in regard to Man’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 …
  • … orang-utan, and the bird of paradise  (Wallace 1869a; letter to A. R. Wallace, 22 March [1869] ) …
  • … does himself an injustice & never demands justice’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 ). …
  • … geological structures of the South American cordillera ( letter to Charles Lyell, 20 May 1869 ), …
  • … of the same species that Darwin had investigated in depth ( letter from C. F. Claus, 6 February …
  • … role of earthworms in the formation of the soil ( letter to  Gardeners’ Chronicle , 9 May [1869] …
  • … sundew), a genus that he had studied in the early 1860s ( letter to W. C. Tait, 12 and 16 March …
  • … for either the fourth or the fifth English editions ( see letter from Victor Masson, 29 September …
  • … and broadening the forums in which Darwinism was discussed. John Murray brought out the first issue …
  • … that to me would have been a pleasing sight’ ( letter to John Murray, [after 18 September 1869] ). …

1.3 Thomas Herbert Maguire, lithograph

Summary

< Back to Introduction This striking portrait of Darwin, dating from 1849, belonged to a series of about sixty lithographic portraits of naturalists and other scientists drawn by Thomas Herbert Maguire. They were successively commissioned over a…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … treatises, as its first president, and his friend Revd John Stevens Henslow – Darwin’s Cambridge …
  • … 1849], DCP-LETT-1335, and 25 Oct. [1849], DCP-LETT-1261. Letter from Ransome to Michael Faraday, 6 …
  • … Electrical Engineers, 1991–2012), vol. 4, pp. 305–306, letter 2433. Report on ‘British Association …
  • … Prince Albert to Ipswich’, Times (4 July 1851), p. 5. [John Ellor Taylor], A Guide to the …

Darwin in letters, 1860: Answering critics

Summary

On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species, printing off another 3000 copies to satisfy the demands of an audience that surprised both the publisher and the author. It wasn't long, however, before ‘the…

Matches: 29 hits

  • … On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s  Origin of species , …
  • … learn that the book was on sale even in railway stations ( letter to Charles Lyell, 14 January …
  • … the book, thinking that it would be nice easy reading.’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 22 May [1860] ). …
  • … he told Hooker, did not at all concern his main argument ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 January [1860] …
  • … his theory would have been ‘ utterly  smashed’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 July [1860] ). (A …
  • … from right principles of scientific investigation.—’ ( letter to J. S. Henslow, 8 May [1860] ). …
  • … a theory solely by explaining an ample lot of facts.’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 18 February [1860] ). …
  • … phenomena it comes in time to be admitted as real.’ ( letter to C. J. F. Bunbury, 9 February [1860] …
  • … . Fawcett asserted that Darwin’s theory accorded well with John Stuart Mill’s exposition of the …
  • … natural selection did not necessarily lead to progression ( letter to Charles Lyell, 18 [and 19 …
  • … considered it more a failure than a success ( see letter to J. D. Hooker, 14 February [1860] ). …
  • … naturalists because more accustomed to reasoning.’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 18 May 1860 ). …
  • … two physiologists, and five botanists ( see letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 March [1860] ). Others, like …
  • … tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 3 April [1860] ). By the …
  • … favour of change of form’, namely those of embryology ( letter to Asa Gray, 10 September [1860] ). …
  • … his study of the geographical distribution of species ( see letter from T. H. Huxley, 6 August 1860 …
  • … ‘man is in same predicament with other animals’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 10 January [1860] )— he …
  • … book had become ‘topics of the day’ at the meeting in a letter from Hooker written from Oxford. …
  • … to hear Samuel Wilberforce, the bishop of Oxford, reply to John William Draper’s paper giving a …
  • … Darwin ‘master of the field after 4 hours battle’ (letter from J. D. Hooker, 2 July 1860). Other …
  • … that ‘this row is best thing for subject.—’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 July [1860] ). Further …
  • … if the whole were already proved) to his own views.—’ ( letter from J. S. Henslow to J. D. Hooker, …
  • … ‘how differently different opposers view the subject’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 15 February [1860] …
  • … studying the first published piece: 'I said in a former letter that you were a Lawyer; but I …
  • … that these visits have led to changed structure.’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 27 April [1860] ). …
  • … several months later, ‘just as at a game of chess.’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 19 [July 1860] ). …
  • … I shall improve the Book considerably.—’ ( letter to John Murray, 5 December [1860] ). Although he …
  • … to convert people under 20 year,’ he told his friend John Innes, ‘though firmly convinced  now …
  • … good judge coming some little way with me.’ ( letter to John Innes, 28 December [1860] ). …

Darwin in letters, 1877: Flowers and honours

Summary

Ever since the publication of Expression, Darwin’s research had centred firmly on botany. The year 1877 was no exception. The spring and early summer were spent completing Forms of flowers, his fifth book on a botanical topic. He then turned to the…

Matches: 30 hits

  • … as Daniel Oliver, Friedrich Hildebrand, Fritz Müller, and John Scott who had provided initial …
  • … of respect and affection’. He hinted as much in his letter of 4 June : ‘you will see I have done …
  • … have shared Hooker’s suspicion of ambitious gardeners ( letter from W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 25 August …
  • … method of recording leaf motion for extended periods. In a letter to Thiselton-Dyer of 11 October …
  • … … tap one of the young leaves with a delicate twig’ ( letter to R. I. Lynch, 14 September 1877 ). …
  • … the full paper. A disgruntled Darwin reported to George John Romanes on 23 May , ‘the Council …
  • … , or to the vibratory flagella of some Infusoria’ ( letter from F. J. Cohn, 5 August 1877 ). …
  • … in July 1877 (F. Darwin 1877b), and Darwin sent Cohn’s letter vindicating his son’s research to …
  • … his sense of form and of motion was exact and lively’ ( letter from W. E. Gladstone, 23 October …
  • … the Westphalian Provincial Society for Science and Art. In a letter to Darwin written before 16 …
  • … the only one full-page in size. Haeckel sent a personal letter of congratulation on 9 February , …
  • … (see Appendix V). The album arrived with a long letter from the director and secretary of the …
  • … reported, ‘but found him as soft & smooth as butter’ ( letter to C. E. Norton, 16 March 1877 ) …
  • … write to Owen & offer himself you & me to dejeuner!!!’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 14 June …
  • … where I hope it may remain for centuries to come’ ( letter from C. C. Graham, 30 January 1877 ). …
  • … and ignorance in the name of science: ‘I am not John the baptist from the wilderness of locusts and …
  • … you in the interests of truth, of man and of societies’ ( letter from Marcellin de Bonnal, [1877] …
  • … to the old story to be horsewhipped by a duke!’ ( letter to J. M. Rodwell, 3 June 1877 ). Back …
  • … frog spawn; the gospel of dirt the order of the day’ ( letter from E. A. Darwin, 27 January [1877] …
  • … credence to racist prejudice in Descent of man . In a letter from an unknown correspondent on …
  • … the subjects of Siebold’s study of medical monstrosity ( letter from C. T. E. Siebold, 10 October …
  • … our blood and thus keep back our civilization’ ( letter from W. B. Bowles, 17 May 1877 ). Bowles …
  • … and wives of ‘men of the white race’. In a follow-up letter he warned, ‘you find them in multituds …
  • … polish serves to hide the absence of humanity beneath’ ( letter from W. B. Bowles, 18 May 1877 ). …
  • … in New Guinea, who reportedly had hard inflexible tails ( letter from Arthur Mellersh, 1 January …
  • … William Conant, was a colleague of the showman Phineas Taylor Barnum. Visitors were charged twenty …
  • … up Pangenesis with wicked imprecations’ (Trollope 1867; letter to G. J. Romanes, [1 and 2 December …
  • … disclaimed its ‘scientific value’, he confessed in a letter of 25 November 1877 that the book …
  • … so many men exhibit is in many cases purely physical’ ( letter from W. M. Moorsom, 10 September …
  • … me in a considerate and friendly manner.’ He wrote to John Brodie Innes, the former vicar of Down, …

Climbing plants

Summary

Darwin’s book Climbing plants was published in 1865, but its gestation began much earlier. The start of Darwin’s work on the topic lay in his need, owing to severe bouts of illness in himself and his family, for diversions away from his much harder book on…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … & do not find that it is known, I will perhaps write a letter to you for the  chance  of its …
  • … days later, Oliver apologised for the tone of his previous letter (‘more seemly if addressed to one …
  • … to have an author’s offprint separately printed by Taylor and Francis. In August, it was also …