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Darwin in letters, 1882: Nothing too great or too small
Summary
In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and for the first time in decades he was not working on another book. He remained active in botanical research, however. Building on his recent studies in plant…
Matches: 20 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the …
- … is nearly run’ ( letter to Lawson Tait, 13 February 1882 ). His condition worsened in March. …
- … styled plants ( letter from Fritz Müller, 1 January 1882 , and letter to Fritz Müller, 4 January …
- … & I am glad to shirk any extra labour’ ( letter to G. J. Romanes, 6 January 1882 ). The …
- … effects on chlorophyll ( letter to Joseph Fayrer, 30 March 1882 ). He received a specimen of …
- … one plant or animal!’ ( letter to Henry Groves, 3 April 1882 ). He wrote to an American in Kansas …
- … seeing the flowers & experimentising on them’ ( letter to J. E. Todd, 10 April 1882 ). While …
- … affects my heart’ ( letter to Henry Groves, 3 April 1882 ). Earthworms and evolution …
- … Murray, carried an anonymous article on the book in January 1882. The reviewer’s assessment was …
- … researches themselves’ ( Quarterly Review , January 1882, p. 179). Darwin commented at length on …
- … about evolution’ ( letter to John Murray, 21 January 1882 ). The author was in fact the clergyman …
- … the summit, whence it rolls down the sides’ ( letter from J. F. Simpson, 7 January 1882 ). The …
- … on it, which would have pleased me greatly’ ( letter from J. H. Gilbert, 9 January 1882, and …
- … best of the fight’ ( letter from G. F. Crawte, 11 March 1882 ). The battle apparently ended in a …
- … edited by the American educator Emily Talbot (Talbot ed. 1882). His letter to Talbot written the …
- … the newspaper press’ ( letter from A. T. Rice, 4 February 1882 ). Rice looked to Darwin to provide …
- … case greatly suffer’ ( letter to C. A. Kennard, 9 January 1882 ). Kennard’s reply must be read in …
- … desires, grant us this our modest request!’ ( letter from J. L. Ambrose, 3 April 1882 ). Darwin …
- … news to his closest friends. She wrote to Joseph Dalton Hooker the day after Darwin’s death. ‘Our …
- … were never very violent’ ( letter from Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker, [20 April 1882] ). In …

The full edition is now online!
Summary
For nearly fifty years successive teams of researchers on both sides of the Atlantic have been working to track down all surviving letters written by or to Charles Darwin, research their content, and publish the complete texts. The thirtieth and final…
Matches: 7 hits
- … all the letter texts – more than 15000 between 1822 and 1882 – are now published online. Like …
- … months of Darwin039;s life in our Life and Letters series, 1882: Nothing too great or too small …
- … run. ’ Letter to Lawson Tait, 13 February 1882 In early 1882, Darwin, who …
- … as I am. ’ Letter to John Murray, 21 January 1882 Darwin was by now confident …
- … no pain. ’ Letter to T. H. Huxley, 27 March 1882 Darwin wrote this to Thomas …
- … it is worth having .’ Letter from Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker, [20 April 1882] …
- … on 20 April: this letter concludes the correspondence for 1882. The family had expected Darwin to be …

Joseph Dalton Hooker
Summary
The 1400 letters exchanged between Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) account for around 10% of Darwin’s surviving correspondence and provide a structure within which all the other letters can be explored. They are a connecting thread that spans…
Matches: 24 hits
- … with his closest friend, the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. The 1400 letters exchanged …
- … Darwin’s mature working life from 1843 until his death in 1882 and bring into sharp focus every …
- … that period. They illuminate the mutual friendships he and Hooker shared with other scientists, but …
- … two men. Their correspondence began in 1843 when Hooker, just returned from James Clark Ross …
- … main elements of his species theory, and within a few months Hooker was admitted into the small and …
- … perhaps his most famous letter of all , Darwin wrote to Hooker in January 1844 of his growing …
- … 1858 outlining an almost identical theory to his own, it was Hooker, together with Charles Lyell, …
- … Darwin called “natural selection”. It was also to Hooker that Darwin, writing furiously in …
- … of On the Origin of Species for comment, and Hooker continued to be a sounding board for …
- … which various plants are nourished, reproduce, and colonise. Hooker, who after ten years as …
- … global networks of well-informed correspondents. Hooker was a frequent visitor to Darwin at …
- … as well as to the patient ”. It was to Darwin that Hooker wrote just an hour after the death of his …
- … the many hundreds of letters that passed between Darwin and Hooker all but a handful of those that …
- … in 1888 and 1902, the second of which he dedicated to Hooker “in remembrance of his lifelong …
- … letters is also obvious, for example in his annotations to Hooker’s comments on the first edition of …
- … Key letters Developing a theory: Darwin to J. D. Hooker, [11 January 1844] : Darwin …
- … day, distracted by grief, Darwin sent two letters to Hooker who was in the midst of arranging …
- … The writing of Origin and its reception: Hooker was one of the few to whom Darwin sent …
- … for comment – with close to disastrous results when Hooker’s children used some of it for scrap …
- … response of the old fogies of Cambridge. Read Hooker’s description of the famous 1860 …
- … . Friendship, gossip, and shared jokes: Hooker started a running joke in their …
- … being the result of natural selection. When Hooker had his family silver stolen by a man …
- … had resulted in neuter humans who would not flirt. Hooker suggested they should give up …
- … daughter of his grandfather , Erasmus Darwin. Hooker sometimes made fun of Darwin’s …
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007
Matches: 28 hits
- … writings of Asa Gray, Charles Darwin, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Jane Loring Gray Louis Agassiz, Adam …
- … this actor uses the words of Jane Loring Gray, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Hugh Falconer, Louis Agassiz, …
- … of natural selection to his friend, the botanist, Joseph D Hooker GRAY: 3 Charles …
- … year 1839, and copied and communicated to Messrs Lyell and Hooker in 1844, being a part of …
- … DARWIN: 7 January 1844. My dear Hooker. I have been …engaged in a very presumptuous work …
- … the opportunity I enjoyed of making your acquaintance at Hooker’s three years ago; and besides that …
- … sheet of note-paper! DARWIN: 11 My dear Hooker… What a remarkably nice and kind …
- … 22 Hurrah I got yesterday my 41st Grass! Hooker is younger than Darwin and Gray by …
- … species before… DARWIN: 24 My dear Hooker… you cannot imagine how pleased I am …
- … on your bowels of immutability. Darwin passes to Hooker a brace of letters 25 …
- … there is a little rap for you. GRAY: 26 Hooker [is] dreadfully paradoxical to …
- … as well as any man. I send it… Darwin passes to Hooker an envelope of seeds. …
- … and Hawks have often been seen in mid Atlantic. HOOKER: 28 Thanks for your letter …
- … pleased to have. DARWIN: 33 My dear Hooker. Thanks, also, for [your] Photograph, …
- … expression and so by no means does you justice. HOOKER: 34 I believe I have very …
- … beguiled into should ‘rile’ you, as you say it does… Hooker rightly tells me, I have no business to …
- … make a very audacious remark in opposition to what I imagine Hooker has been writing and to your own …
- … to tell you, that before I had ever corresponded with you, Hooker had shown me several of your …
- … – a Scottish paleobotanist and contemporary of Darwin and Hooker – splutters… FALCONER: …
- … I can see that you have already corrupted and half-spoiled Hooker!! DARWIN: Now when I see …
- … out much fuller in my sketch copied in 1844, and read by Hooker some dozen years ago…. I should be …
- … world to come. DARWIN: 56 My dearest Hooker, You will, and so will Mrs Hooker, be …
- … A GREAT DRAWBACK TO THE PRIVILEGES OF OLD AGE: 1882 In which Darwin dies and is …
- … notoriety… Charles Darwin died on the 19th April [1882], a few months after the completion of …
- … AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, PROCEEDINGS XVII, 1882 4 C DARWIN TO JD HOOKER …
- … C DARWIN, 18–19 AUGUST 1862 149 C DARWIN TO J. D. HOOKER 26 JULY 1863 150 …
- … TO C DARWIN, 29 NOVEMBER 1879 209 A GRAY, 1882, MEMOIR OF DARWIN 210 A …
- … FUNERAL 211 A GRAY TO JD HOOKER, 21 APR 1882 212 A GRAY TO JD HOOKER, 31 OCT …

Capturing Darwin’s voice: audio of selected letters
Summary
On a sunny Wednesday in June 2011 in a makeshift recording studio somewhere in Cambridge, we were very pleased to welcome Terry Molloy back to the Darwin Correspondence Project for a special recording session. Terry, known for his portrayal of Davros in Dr…
Matches: 1 hits
- … voyage, to a letter to C. A. Kennard written on 9 January 1882 , only shortly before Darwin’s …

Darwin in letters, 1881: Old friends and new admirers
Summary
In May 1881, Darwin, one of the best-known celebrities in England if not the world, began writing about all the eminent men he had met. He embarked on this task, which formed an addition to his autobiography, because he had nothing else to do. He had…
Matches: 9 hits
- … which I can do’, he wrote despondently to Joseph Dalton Hooker on 15 June , concluding, ‘I must …
- … made clear the veneration in which he was held. ‘I’d give one year of my life for one hours …
- … vol. 30, letter to C. A. Kennard, 9 January 1882 ). ‘I sometimes receive so many …
- … friends, however, did not agree. Both John Lubbock and Hooker asked for Darwin’s advice when writing …
- … power’ ( letter from M. C. Stanley, 16 October 1881 ). Hooker thanked Darwin for the ‘diet of …
- … in histology, and thoroughness led Darwin to admit to Hooker on 22 October , ‘No man was ever …
- … Nature published the day after Darwin’s death in April 1882. Deaths, gifts and legacies …
- … is difficult to resist the pessimistic view of creation’, Hooker told Darwin when informing him on …
- … thoroughly honorable & excellent a man never lived’. Hooker read the death announcement on 29 …
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: 17 hits
- … & stigmas’, Darwin remarked to Joseph Dalton Hooker on 25 January . He had been troubling …
- … it is not likely that more than a few hundred copies w d . be sold’. His publisher knew from …
- … He requested a large number of plants from Hooker on 25 May , adding, ‘I often wish that I could …
- … to Down if it lay in my power and you thought it w d . help you.’ ‘I declare had it not been for …
- … warned Thiselton-Dyer, who seems to have shared Hooker’s suspicion of ambitious gardeners ( letter …
- … fuller’s teasel ( Dipsacus sylvestris , a synonym of D. fullonum ). He thought that the …
- … to the Royal Society of London by Darwin, who confessed to Hooker on 25 January , ‘I know that it …
- … of its being printed in the R. Soc. Transactions, (sh d . the referees so order) would stimulate …
- … vibratory flagella of some Infusoria’ ( letter from F. J. Cohn, 5 August 1877 ). Francis’s paper …
- … Die Seele des Kindes (The mind of the child; Preyer 1882), based partly on observations of his son …
- … as butter’ ( letter to C. E. Norton, 16 March 1877 ). Hooker was asked repeatedly by the emperor …
- … & offer himself you & me to dejeuner!!!’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 14 June 1877 ). …
- … the old story to be horsewhipped by a duke!’ ( letter to J. M. Rodwell, 3 June 1877 ). Back home, …
- … with wicked imprecations’ (Trollope 1867; letter to G. J. Romanes, [1 and 2 December 1877] ). …
- … the ceremony. ‘They are going to formally offer you the L.L.D degree’, George wrote before 28 May …
- … 2: 230), and he later described the event to Hyacinth Hooker on 18 November 1877 : ‘There was a …
- … without lying down to rest’, he explained ( letter to J. W. Clark, 12 November 1877 ). …

Darwin’s hothouse and lists of hothouse plants
Summary
Darwin became increasingly involved in botanical experiments in the years after the publication of Origin. The building of a small hothouse - a heated greenhouse - early in 1863 greatly increased the range of plants that he could keep for scientific…
Matches: 16 hits
- … purposes’ (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to J. D. Hooker, 24 December [1862] , and …
- … (Down House MS) and Correspondence vol. 5, letter to J. D. Hooker, 19 April [1855] ). Darwin …
- … to touch (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to J. D. Hooker, 12 [December 1862] and n. 13). …
- … [1862] ( Correspondence vol. 10) Darwin told Hooker: I have almost resolved to …
- … of prizes & is very observant. He believes that we sh d succeed with a little patience; …
- … mid-January, and completed by mid-February (see letters to J. D. Hooker, 13 January [1863] and …
- … plants for use in a wide variety of experiments. He told Hooker that he was ‘looking with much …
- … shall keep to curious & experimental plants’ (letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 January [1863] ). …
- … with whom he had dealt over many years. In his letter to Hooker, Darwin mentioned that he hoped to …
- … ‘awful sums’ that he imagined they would cost to buy. Hooker’s response was unequivocal: ‘You will …
- … plants you want before going to Nurserymen’ (letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 January 1863] ). …
- … avoid[,] of course I must not have from Kew’ (letter to J. D. Hooker, 30 January [1863] ). …
- … ‘I long to stock it, just like a school-boy’ (letter to J. D. Hooker, 15 February [1863] ). On …
- … for, but which I did not like to ask for’ (letter to J. D. Hooker, [21 February 1863] ). He had, …
- … proffering further advice on cultivation (see letter from J. D. Hooker, [6 March 1863] ). …
- … many botanical experiments (see, for example, A. de Candolle 1882, p. 495). The greenhouses were, …
1.18 John Collier, oil in Linnean
Summary
< Back to Introduction By 1881 it was clear to Darwin’s intimates that he was increasingly frail, and that, as he approached death, he had finally escaped from religious controversy to become a heroic figure, loved and venerated for his achievements…
Matches: 0 hits

Species and varieties
Summary
On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most famous book, and the reader would rightly assume that such a thing as ‘species’ must therefore exist and be subject to description. But the title continues, …or…
Matches: 5 hits
- … Aristotle on the parts of animals (Ogle trans. 1882). Darwin would have found that Aristotle …
- … contemporary naturalists. In a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker, he wrote, ‘It is really laughable …
- … from trying to define the undefinable’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 24 December [1856] ). The idea …
- … whether sterility could be ‘selected’. In 1862, he told Hooker, ‘I am now strongly inclined to …
- … quality to keep incipient species distinct’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 12 [December 1862] ). In …

Darwin in letters, 1878: Movement and sleep
Summary
In 1878, Darwin devoted most of his attention to the movements of plants. He investigated the growth pattern of roots and shoots, studying the function of specific organs in this process. Working closely with his son Francis, Darwin devised a series of…
Matches: 4 hits
- … is to lessen injury to leaves from radiation’, he wrote to Hooker on 25 March ; ‘this has …
- … who was delighted, and eventually published them in his 1882 book Animal intelligence . ‘Like the …
- … he made a fool of himself at Belfast,’ Darwin wrote to Hooker on 3 or 4 March . ‘I have often …
- … oddest thing that ever happened to me’, Darwin wrote to Hooker on 14 December. Mindful of the lack …
Women as a scientific audience
Summary
Target audience? | Female readership | Reading Variation Darwin's letters, in particular those exchanged with his editors and publisher, reveal a lot about his intended audience. Regardless of whether or not women were deliberately targeted as a…
Matches: 11 hits
- … Letter 2447 - Darwin to Murray, J., [5 April 1859] Darwin sends a manuscript copy of …
- … of style. Letter 2461 - Darwin to Hooker, J. D., [11 May 1859] Darwin …
- … tone and style. Letter 7329 - Murray , J. to Darwin, [28 September 1870] …
- … Letter 7331 - Darwin to Murray, J., [29 September 1870] Darwin asks Murray to …
- … to women. Letter 8611 - Cupples, A. J. to Darwin, E., [8 November 1872] …
- … - Barnard, A. to Darwin, [30 March 1871] J. S. Henslow’s daughter, Anne, responds to …
- … with her father. Letter 7651 - Wedgwood, F. J. to Darwin, H. E., [1 April 1871] …
- … be suitable. Letter 7411 - Pfeiffer, E. J. to Darwin, [before 26 April 1871] …
- … Letter 13650 Kennard, C. A. to Darwin, [28 January 1882] Caroline Kennard responds …
- … patience and care. Letter 6110 - Samuelson, J. to Darwin, [10 April 1868] …
- … is a revelation. Letter 9633 - Nevill, D. F. to Darwin, [11 September 1874] …
Portraits of Charles Darwin: a catalogue
Summary
Compiled by Diana Donald The format of the catalogue Nineteenth-century portraits of Darwin are found in a very wide range of visual media. For the purposes of this catalogue, they have been divided into four broad categories, according to medium.…
Matches: 5 hits
- … worldly ambition or desire for fame. One obituarist noted in 1882 that Darwin ‘never aimed at cheap …
- … then difficult to hunt down in the shops, and were anyway, Hooker thought, ‘not pleasing’; and no …
- … of Mr. Charles R. Darwin’, Daily News (21 April 1882). A writer on ‘The late Mr. Darwin’ in the …
- … science than for personal self-exaltation’. Hooker to Darwin, 24 January 1864 (DCP-LETT …
- … ‘Germany’, a report in the Times (29 April 1882), p. 7, mentions a ‘wax figure of the late Mr. …
3.20 Elliott and Fry, c.1880-1, verandah
Summary
< Back to Introduction In photographs of Darwin taken c.1880-1, the expression of energetic thought conveyed by photographs of earlier years gives way to the pathos of evident physical frailty. While Collier’s oil portrait of this time emphasises…
Matches: 6 hits
- … ses photographies montrent plutôt sa conformation de tête, d’un philosophe de l’antiquité.’ …
- … photographs of Darwin by Messrs. Elliott and Fry, taken in 1882, i.e. the year of his death’. …
- … his father’s air of sadness at that time. In a letter to Hooker of 15 June 1881, echoed in another …
- … references and bibliography letters from Darwin to Hooker, 15 June 1881 (DCP-LETT-13207) and to B …
- … des Sciences de la Bibliothèque Universelle , 7 (May 1882). Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and …
- … the Darwin Correspondence Project’, accessed March 2020. J. van Wyhe, ‘Iconography’, pp. 179-81. …

Movement in Plants
Summary
The power of movement in plants, published on 7 November 1880, was the final large botanical work that Darwin wrote. It was the only work in which the assistance of one of his children, Francis Darwin, is mentioned on the title page. The research for this…
Matches: 19 hits
- … combining the works in a single volume ( letter to J. V. Carus, 7 February 1875 ). While …
- … the phenomenon. A few days later, Darwin wrote to Joseph Hooker, ‘ Why are the leaves & fruit …
- … injure the leaves? if indeed this is at all the case ’. Hooker, who had also speculated on the …
- … on Mimosa albida from Kew Gardens, he explained to Hooker, ‘ I have never syringed (with tepid …
- … whether they are coated with a waxy secretion ’. He told Hooker, ‘ I have been looking over my old …
- … 28 July 1877] ). ‘ I do not believe I sh d . have ever have noticed the movement had it not been …
- … night & we have made out a good deal ’, but confiding to Hooker, ‘ We have been working like …
- … movements of leaves ’. He confirmed this view to Hooker, ‘ From what Frank & I have seen, I …
- … he reported some progress in understanding movement, telling Hooker, ‘ I think we have proved …
- … was asked to send any spare seeds he might have. ‘ I sh d . like to see how the embryo breaks …
- … using photography for scientific accuracy ( letter from J. D. Cooper, 13 December 1878 ). The …
- … that the method was ‘ all that I can desire, but as I sh d like to give a very large number of …
- … ‘ I am very sorry that Sachs is so sceptical, for I w d . rather convert him than any other half …
- … do not when cauterised bend geotropically & why sh d we say this is owing to injury, when …
- … of his annual family holiday telling his close friend Hooker, ‘ I have been working pretty hard of …
- … ( letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 20 November 1879 ). Hooker offered to write to Egypt for the …
- … without any nervous system! I think that such facts sh d . be kept in mind, when speculating on …
- … Eduard Koch had already agreed to publish it ( letter from J. V. Carus, 18 September 1880 ). The …
- … Nature the day after his father’s death (F. Darwin 1882). Darwin’s study of plant movement went …

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
- … 4 [Pierquin de Gembloux 1839]. Said to be good by D r L. Lindsay 5 [DAR *119: 1v. …
- … [A. von Humboldt 1811] Richardson’s Fauna Borealis [J. Richardson 1829–37] …
- … Brown 1814] & at the end of Congo voyage [R. Brown 1818]. (Hooker 923) 7 read …
- … on Annals of Nat. Hist. [Jenyns 1838] Prichard; a 3 d . vol [Prichard 1836–47] Lawrence [W. …
- … Teneriffe. in Pers. Narr. [A. von Humboldt 1814–29] D r Royle on Himmalaya types [Royle …
- … reference to authors about E. Indian Islands 8 consult D r Horsfield [Horsfield 1824] …
- … sheep [Youatt 1831, 1834, 1837]. Verey Philosophie d’Hist. Nat. [Virey 1835] read …
- … Paper on consciousness in brutes Blackwood June 1838 [J. F. Ferrie 1838]. H. C. Watson on …
- … Crawford Eastern Archipelago [Crawfurd 1820] Raffeles d[itt]o [T. S. B. Raffles 1817] …
- … [Temminck 1813–15] read Temminck has written Coup d’œil sur la Fauna des iles de la Sonde et …
- … to White Nat. Hist of Selbourne [E. T. Bennett ed. 1837 and [J. Rennie] ed. 1833] read 19 : …
- … on generation. 1828 [Girou de Buzareingues 1828a]. quoted by D r Ryan on marriage [Ryan 1831] …
- … what have they written.? “Hunt” [J. Hunt 1806] p. 290 …
- … He is Horticulturist in France. Michaux, according to Hooker has written on topography of N. …
- … chiefly on distribution of forms said to be Poor Sir. J. Edwards Botanical Tour [?J. E. Smith …
- … Butler. 3. first sermons [Butler 1834] recommended by Sir. J. Mackintosh J. Long Moral Nature …
- … Playfair 1824] Hume’s Essay [?Hume 1741–2] J. Taylor Art of Dying [J. Taylor 1651] …
- … ]. many very useful papers for me:— not in Hort. Soc. Hooker? Rogets Bridgewater Treatise …
- … —— Mauritius & C. of Good Hope Hooker recommends order [Backhouse …
- … Decandolles Veg: Organ: } recommended by Hooker . [A. P. de …
- … C. Watson 1845]— gives up permanent species (alluded to by Hooker) Foreign & British Med. …
- … 43 Lindley’s Vegetable Kingdom [Lindley 1846]. Hooker says very good for my purpose …
- … Phytologist [ Phytologist ] must be read . Hooker. read Fortune’s Travels in China …
- … Indian Journal [Griffith 1847], strongly recommended by Hooker— Analysis & theory of the …
- … Reproduzione [Gallesio 1816]. abstracted 18 th Hooker’s Bot. Misc. [ Botanical Miscellany …
- … never read his works ( Calendar no. 11875). In February 1882, however, after reading the …