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Darwin’s Photographic Portraits

Summary

Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the study of Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, but can be witnessed in his many photographic portraits and in the extensive portrait correspondence that…

Matches: 16 hits

  • … When Darwin sent his photograph to a close ally, such as the Harvard botanist  Asa Gray , or when …
  • … Jean Claudet (1797–1867), Dar 225:129, ©Cambridge University Library  Darwin waited …
  • … to the copy he had sent five years previously in his 1860 letter to Hooker , Darwin exclaimed …
  • … Images: Charles Darwin, 1860-61, William Darwin, Courtesy of Harvard University Herbaria and the …
  • … gaze. These photographs were rarely included in a Darwin letter, save for perhaps a very few close …
  • … 1868, Julia Margaret Cameron, Dar 225:139, ©Cambridge University Library In the same …
  • … ‘Tommy’, 1868, Leonard Darwin, Dar 225:116, ©Cambridge University Library In 1869, …
  • … taken for public consumption. Responding to  a letter from a German translator – Adolph …
  • … Darwin, 1871, Oscar Rejlander, Dar 257:14, ©Cambridge University Library During the …
  • … which you do me the honour to wish to possess.” As the letter and photograph had to travel from Down …
  • … Darwin, 1874, Elliot and Fry, Dar 257:11,  ©Cambridge University Library In the same …
  • … Darwin, 1878, Leonard Darwin, Dar 225:119, ©Cambridge University Library Between 1874 …
  • … Darwin, 1878, Leonard Darwin, Dar 225:1, ©Cambridge University Library Again, however …
  • … Darwin, 1881, Elliot and Fry, Dar 140.1:32, ©Cambridge University Library The final …
  • … Darwin, 1881, Barraud, Dar 257:6, ©Cambridge University Library Further Readings …
  • … Photography in the Theory of Evolution . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. …

Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865

Summary

On 20 May 1865, Emma Darwin recorded in her diary that John Chapman, a prominent London publisher who had studied medicine in London and Paris in the early 1840s, visited Down to consult with Darwin about his ill health. In 1863 Chapman started to treat…

Matches: 7 hits

  • … Darwin began the ice treatment on 20 May 1865. In his letter to Chapman of 7 June 1865, he reported …
  • … week of July, he had evidently given up the treatment (see letter from Charles and Emma Darwin to J. …
  • … gout’ by Henry Holland in 1849 ( Correspondence vol. 4, letter to W. D. Fox, 6 February [1849]). …
  • … by William Brinton, William Jenner, and George Busk (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [7 January 1865], …
  • … 11, Emma Darwin to W. D. Fox, 8 December [1863]). In his letter to J. D. Hooker, 10 [November 1863] …
  • … with dietary restrictions (see Correspondence vol. 12, letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 April [1864], …
  • …   The manuscript note is in the University of Virginia Library, Albert and Shirley Small …

3.5 William Darwin, photo 2

Summary

< Back to Introduction Darwin’s son William, who had become a banker in Southampton, took the opportunity of a short visit home to Down House in April 1864 to photograph his father afresh. This half-length portrait was the first to show Darwin with a…

Matches: 10 hits

  • … ‘Insane’ and ‘Idiotic’. Darwin himself, in a letter of 1848, had jested that an acquaintance with a …
  • … (but this was a cause of later confusion). According to a letter from Darwin’s daughter Henrietta to …
  • … tentatively  identified with a vignette still preserved at Harvard. An autograph collection of …
  • … physical location Darwin archive, Cambridge University Library (‘carte de visite’ vignette version …
  • … copyright holder Syndics of Cambridge University Library 
 originator of image William …
  • … by Danielle Castronovo, archivist in the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University, about the uncatalogued …
  • … vol. 2, Clark-Green, call no. gra00084. Darwin’s letter to Joseph Hooker, who was then in Calcutta, …
  • … and Gray’s reply, 11 July 1864 (DCP-LETT-4558). Darwin’s letter to Hooker, 10 June [1864], enclosing …
  • … Type and Character in Victorian Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), fig. 33. Janet …
  • … Embodiments of Natural Knowledge (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 240 …

Who we were

Summary

Many people have contributed to the Darwin Correspondence Project since it was first founded in 1974. Some names are now lost to us, and we would appreciate hearing from anyone who has contributed in the past and is not listed here. The final staff of…

Matches: 13 hits

  • … Correspondence Project were based in Cambridge, UK, in the University Library and at the Department …
  • … a BA from Oxford, and a PhD from Cambridge. She curated the University Library’s Darwin Bicentenary …
  • … the World: Charles Darwin and the Beagle Collections of the University of Cambridge (CUP 2009). …
  • … the public. She also keeps the office running, transcribes letter texts, researches obscure …
  • … Newton Project and Enlightening Science (both at the University of Oxford), Livingstone Online …
  • … Medicine at UCL) and the British Living Standards Project (University of Sussex). He was also the …
  • … The Casebooks Project (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge), The …
  • … and ‘Darwin in Conversation’ (2022) at Cambridge University Library. From 2016, he managed this …
  • … Anne was trained in the history of science at London University. She rejoined the Project in October …
  • … 2016), and is completing a book to be published by the University of Chicago Press, that explores …
  • … Thomas Huxley: Making the ‘man of science’ (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and various …
  • … of colleagues based in the History of Science Department, Harvard, under the direction of Professor …
  • … of the grants. We are similarly grateful to Cornell University for providing office space and …

4.16 Joseph Simms, physiognomy

Summary

< Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a three-year lecture tour of Britain, sent Darwin a copy of his book, Nature’s Revelations of Character; Or, Physiognomy Illustrated. He was seeking a public…

Matches: 7 hits

  • … physiognomy was not, however, restricted to the face. In his letter to Darwin he explained, ‘I wish …
  • … was anxious on occasion to disprove such associations. In a letter to Lyell of 21 August 1861, …
  • … fortuitous.  physical location Cambridge University Library 
 accession or …
  • … copyright holder Syndics of Cambridge University Library 
 originator of image …
  • … and to Gray, 17 Sept. [1861] (DCP-LETT-3256]. Simms’s letter to Darwin, 14 Sept. 1874 (DCP-LETT-9637 …
  • … Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 209-210. …
  • … in Nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), and Sharrona Pearl, …

Controversy

Summary

The best-known controversies over Darwinian theory took place in public or in printed reviews. Many of these were highly polemical, presenting an over-simplified picture of the disputes. Letters, however, show that the responses to Darwin were extremely…

Matches: 22 hits

  • … him as a bitter enemy. Darwin and Sedgwick Letter 2525 — Darwin, C. R. to …
  • … of a spirit of bravado, but a want of respect. Letter 2548 — Sedgwick, Adam to Darwin, …
  • … of brotherly love and as his true-hearted friend. Letter 2555 — Darwin, C. R. to …
  • … classes of facts”. Darwin and Owen Letter 2526 — Owen, Richard to Darwin, C. …
  • … the nature of such influences as “heterodox”. Letter 2575 — Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, …
  • … his book “the law of higgledy-piggledy”. Letter 2580 — Darwin, C. R. to Owen, Richard, …
  • … his views now depends on men eminent in science. Letter 2767 — Darwin, C. R. to Gray, …
  • … prevail without such aggressive tactics. Letter 5500 — Darwin, C. R. to Haeckel, E. P. …
  • … reader to take the side of the attacked person. Letter 5533 — Haeckel, E. P. A. to …
  • … of the matter, a vigorous attack is essential. Letter 5544 — Darwin, C. R. to Haeckel, …
  • … political, and religious differences. Letter 2285 — Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles, 18 …
  • … MS, but Darwin will offer to send it to journal. Letter 2294 — Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, …
  • … his views from anything Darwin wrote to him. Letter 2295 — Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, …
  • … he does not feel this alters the justice of case. Letter 2299 — Hooker, J. D. & …
  • … reasons for arranging the joint presentation. Letter 2306 — Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. …
  • … is now planning a 30-page abstract for a journal. Letter 2337 — Wallace, A. R. to …
  • … paper public unaccompanied by his own views. Letter 6024 — Wallace, A. R. to Darwin, C. …
  • … of minute variations and sexual selection. Letter 6033 — Darwin, C. R. to Wallace, …
  • … George Darwin’s notes on Wallace’s argument. Letter 6045 — Wallace, A. R. to Darwin, C. …
  • … and form new species without being isolated. Letter 6058 — Darwin, C. R. to Wallace, A. …
  • … relating to sterility that they will never agree. Letter 6095 — Darwin, C. R. to …
  • … cannot be increased through natural selection. Letter 6104 — Wallace, A. R. to Darwin, …

Divergence

Summary

In a later account of how he had come to the evolutionary ideas published in Origin, Darwin wrote: 'Of all the minor points, the last which I appreciated was the importance & cause of the principle of Divergence' (to Ernst Haeckel, [after 10]…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Darwin first mentioned the principle by name in a letter to Joseph Hooker in August 1857, but …
  • … 1857, he included a brief outline of the principle in a letter to Asa Gray where he set out the …

Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health

Summary

On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’.  Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…

Matches: 30 hits

  • … to consult William Jenner, professor of clinical medicine at University College, London, and …
  • … of the five physicians Darwin had consulted in 1863. In a letter of 26[–7] March [1864] , Darwin …
  • … and he received more letters of advice from Jenner. In a letter of 15 December [1864] to the …
  • … As Darwin explained to his cousin William Darwin Fox in a letter of 30 November [1864] , ‘the …
  • … observations indoors ( Correspondence  vol. 11). In a letter of [27 January 1864] , Darwin …
  • … the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and professor of botany at University College, London, were of …
  • … gradation by which  leaves  produce tendrils’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [8 February 1864] ). …
  • … fearfully for it is a leaf climber & therefore sacred’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 2 June [1864] …
  • … matters which routinists regard in the light of axioms’ ( letter from Daniel Oliver, [17 March 1864 …
  • … long series of changes . . .’ When he told Asa Gray in a letter of 29 October [1864] that he was …
  • …  paper was published, Darwin remarked to Hooker in a letter of 26 November [1864] that nothing …
  • … of the two species with the common oxlip. In a letter of 22 October [1864] , Darwin triumphantly …
  • … His son George, who later studied mathematics at Cambridge University, assisted with a problem of …
  • … the ‘splendid case of Dimorphism’ in  Menyanthes  ( letter from Emma and Charles Darwin to W. E. …
  • … this interest. At the start of the year, he received a letter, insect specimens, and an article on …
  • … that it was ‘the best medicine for my stomach’ ( letter to Daniel Oliver, 17 February [1864] ). …
  • … at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in 1862 with a letter regarding the fertilisation of the …
  • … two years, with his stipend being paid by Darwin himself ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [1 April 1864] …
  • … is difficult enough to play your part  over  them’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [2 April 1864] ). …
  • … troublesome … they do require very careful treatment’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 8 April 1864 ). …
  • … the conclusion that in giving I am hastening the fall’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1864 ) …
  • … his indomitable perseverance, and his knowledge’ ( letter to John Scott, 10 June 1864 ). Hooker …
  • … basis he recommended a first-class cabin for the journey ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 August …
  • … and curators at a great distance. Gray forwarded a letter from Charles Wright, a plant collector in …
  • … to the materialist philosophy of Ludwig Buchner ( letter from Hermann Kindt, 5 September 1864 ). …
  • … practitioners, including Haeckel’s colleagues at the University of Jena, August Schleicher and Carl …
  • … himself. Haeckel’s scientific life, he reported in a letter of 9 [July 1864] , had been …
  • … often called me her German “Darwin–Mann” ’ ( letter from Ernst Haeckel, 10 August 1864 ). Haeckel …
  • … Darwin also heard of a discussion with a professor at Dijon University who despaired that ‘he could …
  • … Darwin’s transmutation theory against the prominent Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz, whose  Methods …

Abstract of Darwin’s theory

Summary

There are two extant versions of the abstract of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. One was sent to Asa Gray on 5 September 1857, enclosed with a letter of the same date (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter to Asa Gray, 5 September [1857] and enclosure).…

Matches: 6 hits

  • … was sent to Asa Gray on 5 September 1857, enclosed with a letter of the same date (see  …
  • … includes minor alterations and corrections by Darwin. The letter and enclosure are in Gray’s …
  • … J. D. Hooker, [29 June 1858] and [29 June 1858] ; and letter from Charles Lyell and J. D. …
  • … noted. For CD’s work on the proof-sheets of the paper, see letter from J. D. Hooker, 13–15 July …
  • … 1 The printed version is headed: “Abstract of a Letter from C. Darwin, Esq., to Prof. Asa Gray, …
  • … was changed from ‘C.D.’ to ‘C. Darwin’. See letter to J. D. Hooker, [29 June 1858] . The verso of …

Reading my roommate’s illustrious ancestor: To T. H. Huxley, 10 June 1868

Summary

My roommate at Harvard College was Tom Baum, now a Hollywood screenwriter.  Tom’s full name is Thomas Henle Baum, his middle name a reference to a German physician ancestor for whom the ‘Loop of Henle’ in the kidney had been named.  Other than this iconic…

Matches: 8 hits

  • … My roommate at Harvard College was Tom Baum, now a Hollywood screenwriter.  Tom’s full name …
  • … II (they were only sold together), I appealed to Cambridge University Press to kindly consider …
  • … with my professional writer friend Tom -- in which Cambridge University Press adamantly refused any …
  • … 16, Part I.  While I certainly cannot say I read every letter, I like to take an hour or two …
  • … And as I did so, my eyes fell on a 10 June 1868 Darwin letter to Huxley in which Darwin complains …
  • … of volume 1, part 3, on muscles, is in [Charles Darwin’s] Library.” To nail things down I …
  • … I had happened to tell Tom about my emails with Cambridge University Press in an effort to obtain my …
  • … through the pages with my eyes falling particularly on the letter in which Darwin complains to …

Darwin in letters,1866: Survival of the fittest

Summary

The year 1866 began well for Charles Darwin, as his health, after several years of illness, was now considerably improved. In February, Darwin received a request from his publisher, John Murray, for a new edition of  Origin. Darwin got the fourth…

Matches: 28 hits

  • … Pound foolish, Penurious, Pragmatical Prigs’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1866] ). But …
  • … able to write easy work for about 1½ hours every day’ ( letter to H. B. Jones, 3 January [1866] ). …
  • … once daily to make the chemistry go on better’ ( letter from H. B. Jones, 10 February [1866] ). …
  • … see you out with our beagles before the season is over’ ( letter from John Lubbock, 4 August 1866 …
  • … work doing me any harm—any how I can’t be idle’ ( letter to W. D. Fox, 24 August [1866] ). …
  • … production of which Tegetmeier had agreed to supervise ( letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 16 January …
  • … of “Domestic Animals & Cult. Plants” to Printers’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 24 December [1866] …
  • … good deal I think, & have come to more definite views’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 22 December …
  • … discussion of glacial theory, prompted in part by the Harvard naturalist Louis Agassiz’s recent …
  • … ‘I quite follow you in thinking Agassiz glacier-mad’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 8[–9] September …
  • … ten times more than the belief of a dozen physicists’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [28 February 1866] …
  • … past few years. Emma described the Royal Society event in a letter to George: ‘Your father … entered …
  • … you—& told me to worship Bence Jones in future—’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 13 May 1866 ). …
  • … 3 calls! & then went for ¾ to Zoolog. Garden!!!!!!!!!’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [28 April 1866 …
  • … delighted to come on those terms so you are in for it’ ( letter from H. E. Darwin, [  c . 10 May …
  • … very much to see him, though I dread all exertion’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, [12 May 1866] ). …
  • … to Madeira. His visit to Down House is described in a letter from Henrietta to George: ‘when first …
  • … most magnificent eulogium which it has ever received’ ( letter to Ernst Haeckel, 18 August [1866] …
  • … like myself weak in his Greek, is something dreadful’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 22 December [1866] …
  • … progressive, teleological development ( see for example, letter to C. W. Nägeli, 12 June [1866] ). …
  • … His drawings of  C. scoparius , sent to Darwin with his letter of 8 May [1866] , allowed …
  • … initial state of dimorphism’ (Correspondence vol. 9, letter from Asa Gray, 11 October 1861 ). …
  • … that the species was ‘merely ordinaryly diœcious’ ( letter from W. E. Darwin, [7 May – 11 June 1866 …
  • … the Rhamnus is a case of dimorphic becoming diœcious’ ( letter from W. E. Darwin, 20 June [1866] ) …
  • … blows up— I am well accustomed to such explosions’ ( letter to W. E. Darwin, 22 June [1866] ). He …
  • … be honest, & admit how little is known on the subject’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 and 4 August …
  • … to see how differently we look at every thing’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 5 August [1866] ). Yet …
  • … a world of good, & we have been at it many a long year’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 15 February …

Darwin in letters, 1871: An emptying nest

Summary

The year 1871 was an extremely busy and productive one for Darwin, with the publication in February of his long-awaited book on human evolution, Descent of man. The other main preoccupation of the year was the preparation of his manuscript on expression.…

Matches: 27 hits

  • … do to talk about it, which no doubt promotes the sale’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 26 March 1871 ) …
  • … to her liking, ‘to keep in memory of the book’ ( letter to H. E. Darwin, 20 March 1871 ). …
  • … and had forsaken his lunch and dinner in order to read it ( letter from James Crichton-Browne, 19 …
  • … they believe to be the truth, whether pleasant or not’ (letter from W. W. Reade, 21 February 1871). …
  • … and Oldham … They club together to buy them’ ( letter from W. B. Dawkins, 23 February 1871 ). …
  • … one’s n th . ancestor lived between tide-marks!’ ( letter from T. H. Huxley, 20 February 1871 ). …
  • … habits, furnished with a tail and pointed ears”  (letter from Asa Gray, 14 April 1871) …
  • … ‘will-power’ and the heavy use of their arms and legs ( letter from C. L. Bernays, 25 February 1871 …
  • … in order to make it darker than the hair on his head ( letter from W. B. Tegetmeier, [before 25 …
  • … together with an image of an orang-utan foetus ( letter from Hinrich Nitsche, 18 April 1871 ). …
  • … of himself, adding that it made a ‘very poor return’ ( letter to Hinrich Nitsche, 25 April [1871] …
  • … each night, returning to its allotted space each morning ( letter from Arthur Nicols, 7 March 1871 …
  • … without having a high aesthetic appreciation of beauty ( letter from E. J. Pfeiffer, [before 26 …
  • … endowment of spiritual life’ at some time in the past ( letter from Roland Trimen, 17 and 18 April …
  • … to the white’. Darwin thanked Innes for his ‘pleasant letter’, but asserted his antipathy to human …
  • … myself a good way ahead of you, as far as this goes’ ( letter to J. B. Innes, 29 May [1871] ). …
  • … ‘whereas the baboon is as the Creator made it’ ( letter from George Morrish, 18 March 1871 ). …
  • … could also redeem the wayward author of  Descent  ( letter from a child of God, [after 24 …
  • …  with the most deep and tender religious feeling’ ( letter from F. E. Abbot, 20 August 1871 ). The …
  • … charges of atheism amongst his ‘clerical brethren’ ( letter from George Henslow, 5 December 1871 ) …
  • … from one and the same  catarrhine monkey !’ ( letter from Ernst Haeckel, 21 December 1871 ). …
  • … review as ‘a windbag full of metaphysics & classics’ ( letter to John Murray, 13 April [1871] …
  • … law &c’, and transmitted by culture, not biology ( letter from John Morley, 30 March 1871 ). …
  • … dog when it was confronted by the presence of its master. ( Letter from Hensleigh Wedgwood, [3–9 …
  • … sense was especially troubling to Emma, as indicated in a letter that she wrote to Cobbe on 25 …
  • … Chauncey Wright, a colleague of Asa Gray’s at Harvard University. Darwin financed the publication of …
  • … The Darwins' youngest son, Horace, entered Cambridge University. He passed his first …

Natural Selection: the trouble with terminology Part I

Summary

Darwin encountered problems with the term ‘natural selection’ even before Origin appeared.  Everyone from the Harvard botanist Asa Gray to his own publisher came up with objections. Broadly these divided into concerns either that its meaning simply wasn’t…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … even before Origin appeared.  Everyone from the Harvard botanist Asa Gray to his own publisher …
  • … of twenty years, Natural Selection . With that letter to Gray, Darwin enclosed a …
  • … Nevertheless, regret lingered, and he wrote in a later letter to Lyell: ' Talking of “Natural …
  • … used natural preservation '. (There is now a hole in the letter where Darwin wrote ' …

Darwin in letters, 1861: Gaining allies

Summary

The year 1861 marked an important change in the direction of Darwin’s work. He had weathered the storm that followed the publication of Origin, and felt cautiously optimistic about the ultimate acceptance of his ideas. The letters from this year provide an…

Matches: 29 hits

  • … will do me & Natural Selection, right good service’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 26–7 Februrary [1861] …
  • … ‘barometer’ of scientific opinion, Charles Lyell ( see letter to Charles Lyell, 20 July [1861] ). …
  • … selection could not be ‘directly proved’ ( see second letter to J. D. Hooker, 23 [April 1861] ). …
  • … was ‘the only one proper to such a subject’ ( letter from Henry Fawcett, 16 July [1861] ). Mill in …
  • … or against some view if it is to be of any service!’ ( letter to Henry Fawcett, 18 September [1861] …
  • … chapter on the imperfection of the geological record ( see letter to George Maw, 19 July [1861] ). …
  • … he planned to report ‘at a favourable opportunity’ ( letter from Joseph Leidy, 4 March [1861] ). …
  • … laboratory where Nature manufactures her new species’ ( letter from H. W. Bates, 28 March [1861] ) …
  • … study of natural history was evident. He told Darwin in his letter of [1 December] 1861: …
  • … by insect enemies from which the other set is free’ ( letter from H. W. Bates, 30 September 1861 ) …
  • … be a ‘very valuable contribution to Nat. History.—’ ( letter to H. W. Bates, 4 April [1861] ). He …
  • … causes &c’, and ‘Monkeys,—our poor cousins.—’ ( letter to H. W. Bates, 3 December [1861] ). …
  • … a view to obtaining ‘large distribution’ for the work ( letter to H. W. Bates, 25 September [1861] …
  • … him on producing ‘a complete and awful smasher’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 January [1861] ). Ever …
  • … but he and Owen would ‘never be friends again’ ( letter to T. H. Huxley, 3 January [1861] ). …
  • … fully believe a better man never walked this earth’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 18 [May 1861] ). …
  • … could perhaps ‘throw some light on Hybridisation’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 16 September [1861] ). …
  • … the diversity & perfection of the contrivances.–-’ ( letter of [28 July–10 August 1861] ). …
  • … had ‘some direct bearing on the subject of species’ ( letter to Henry Fawcett, 18 September [1861] …
  • … whether I am not doing a foolish action in publishing’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 17 November [1861] …
  • … ‘it is such tedious work comparing skeletons—’ ( letter to Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefage de Bréau …
  • … on the subject had been ‘one long gigantic blunder’ ( letter to Charles Lyell, 6 September [1861] …
  • … £800, and would so ‘be at once an almost rich man’ ( letter to W. E. Darwin, [26 May 1861] ). The …
  • … of what was thought to be ‘a form of typhus fever’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 11 May 1860 ). This …
  • … to take up his new position. William’s description, in his letter of [17 November 1861], of his …
  • … two or three respectable persons on your own account’ ( letter to W. E. Darwin, 17 [October 1861] …
  • … the newspapers so profoundly interesting’, Darwin told the Harvard botanist Asa Gray on 5 June, and …
  • … to see that greatest curse on Earth Slavery abolished’ ( letter to Asa Gray, 5 June [1861] ): …
  • … acceptance of the theories set forth in  Origin  ( see letter to P. L. Sclater, 12 [March 1861] …

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: 9 hits

  • … to discuss his emerging ideas. In perhaps his most famous letter of all , Darwin wrote to Hooker …
  • … When Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) sent Darwin a letter in 1858 outlining an almost identical …
  • … bound into several large volumes, arrived in Cambridge University Library, in 1948, together with …
  • … of the writer, in particular anxiety or agitation (as in the letter about the death of baby Charles …
  • … “It is miserable in me” Darwin wrote  in his second letter “to care at all about priority”. …
  • … and just write gossip . There is a good example in a letter in which Darwin speculates that a lady …
  • … made fun of Darwin’s appearance: he addressed one letter to his “ Glorified Friend ” after …
  • … of one of Hooker’s sons  interrupted the writing of one letter, and Darwin  teased him for …
  • … interests and fell out with their mutual friend, the Harvard botanist Asa Gray (see for example …

Darwin in letters, 1875: Pulling strings

Summary

‘I am getting sick of insectivorous plants’, Darwin confessed in January 1875. He had worked on the subject intermittently since 1859, and had been steadily engaged on a book manuscript for nine months; January also saw the conclusion of a bitter dispute…

Matches: 17 hits

  • … On 8 January , he told Hooker: ‘I will write a savage letter & that will do me some good, if I …
  • … to the Editor … Poor Murray shuddered again & again’ ( letter from J. D. Hooker, 16 January …
  • … offered to pay the costs for printing an additional 250 ( letter to John Murray, 3 May 1875 ). …
  • … from the Swiss botanist Arnold Dodel, an instructor at the University of Zurich. He immediately took …
  • … in my botanical–microscopical laboratory at the university here, the results of your …
  • … & bless the day That ever you were born (letter from E. F. Lubbock, [after 2 …
  • … that the originally red half has become wholly white’ ( letter from G. J. Romanes, [before 4 …
  • … pp. 188–90). He drew attention to this discussion in a letter to George Rolleston, remarking on 2 …
  • … Darwin wrote, ‘I beg ten thousand pardon & more’ ( letter to Francis Darwin, [ c . February …
  • … signed himself, ‘Your affect son … the proofmaniac’ ( letter from Francis Darwin, 1 and 2 May [1875 …
  • … both critical and reverential. On 16 July he received a letter from an advocate of women’s …
  • … her presentation copy of Insectivorous plants ( letter to D. F. Nevill, 15 July [1875] ). Such …
  • … of my house within the short time I can talk to anyone’ ( letter to John Lubbock, 3 May [1875] ). …
  • … and had agreed to see him at Down with Thiselton-Dyer ( letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 7 July 1875 …
  • … Society, and had been appointed professor of zoology at University College, London. Darwin …
  • … lay of hair in eyelashes and on arms, a typically lengthy letter full of personal observations, …
  • … examination it was pronounced to be of a ‘high type’ ( letter from Woodward Emery, 17 September …

Darwin and Design

Summary

At the beginning of the nineteenth century in Britain, religion and the sciences were generally thought to be in harmony. The study of God’s word in the Bible, and of his works in nature, were considered to be part of the same truth. One version of this…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … the lacunas which he himself had made.  See the letter Kingsley was able to …
  • … and critics alike, he sketched Darwin as a bishop in a letter of 1868, giving audience to a humble …
  • … meteorology, and the function of digestion. Asa Gray, Harvard professor of botany. …