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Strange things sent to Darwin in the post

Summary

Some of the stranger things Darwin received in the post can tell us a lot about how Darwin worked at home. In 1863, Darwin was very excited when the ornithologist Alfred Newton sent him a diseased, red-legged partridge foot with an enormous ball of clay…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … In 1863, Darwin was very excited when the ornithologist Alfred Newton sent him a diseased, red …
  • … Hooker’s throat . The final tally was 82 plants when Newton asked for the foot back to …
  • … Photograph of Hinrich Nitsche's ear, enclosed with the letter from Hinrich Nitsche, 18 April …

Interview with John Hedley Brooke

Summary

John Hedley Brooke is President of the Science and Religion Forum as well as the author of the influential Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1991). He has had a long career in the history of science and…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … Darwin’s close scientific colleague and friend, Alfred Russell Wallace becomes interested, and …
  • … to the fear displayed by monkeys. He writes about this in a letter in 1881 to William Graham : …
  • … One of the first examples was the naturalist Alfred Newton , who became a Darwinian convert …
  • … press one’s heterodoxy onto others. And you refer to a letter from Joseph Hooker to Darwin in 1865 …

The "wicked book": Origin at 157

Summary

Origin is 157 years old.  (Probably) the most famous book in science was published on 24 November 1859.  To celebrate we have uploaded hundreds of new images of letters, bringing the total number you can look at here to over 9000 representing more than…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … in the drama surrounding Origin’ s publication: Alfred Russel Wallace , co-discoverer of …
  • … Edward Blyth J. V. Carus William Kemp Alfred Newton Frederick Smith A. …

Darwin in letters, 1868: Studying sex

Summary

The quantity of Darwin’s correspondence increased dramatically in 1868 due largely to his ever-widening research on human evolution and sexual selection.Darwin’s theory of sexual selection as applied to human descent led him to investigate aspects of the…

Matches: 28 hits

  • … in satisfying female preference in the mating process. In a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace in 1864, …
  • … of changing the races of man’ (Correspondence vol. 12, letter to A. R. Wallace, 28 [May 1864] ). …
  • … book would take the form of a ‘short essay’ on man ( letter to Ernst Haeckel, 3 July 1868 ). But …
  • … as well say, he would drink a little and not too much’ ( letter to Albert Günther, 15 May [1868] ) …
  • … would be a great loss to the Book’. But Darwin’s angry letter to Murray crossed one from Dallas to …
  • … of labour to remuneration I shall look rather blank’ ( letter from W. S. Dallas, 8 January 1868 ). …
  • … if I try to read a few pages feel fairly nauseated’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 February [1868] ). …
  • … reviews. On 7 August 1868 , he wrote him a lengthy letter from the Isle of Wight on the formation …
  • … would strike me in the face, but not behind my back’ ( letter to John Murray, 25 February [1868] ) …
  • … ignorant article… . It is a disgrace to the paper’ ( letter from A. R. Wallace, 24 February [1868] …
  • … ‘he is a scamp & I begin to think a veritable ass’ ( letter to J. D. Hooker, 1 September [1868] …
  • … wrote of the colour of duck claws on 17 April 1868 . The letter was addressed to ‘the Rev d  C. …
  • … proved very fruitful. On 1 May , Darwin received a letter from George Cupples, who was encouraged …
  • … with the enthusiastic breeder, who apologised in a letter of 11–13 May 1868 for his ‘voluminuous …
  • … of science On 27 February , Darwin sent a letter of thanks to the naturalist and …
  • … he later added, ‘for it is clear that I have none’ ( letter to J. J. Weir, 30 May [1868] ). …
  • … to various classes, a dim ray of light may be gained’ ( letter to H. T. Stainton, 21 February [1868 …
  • … as well as of ‘victorious males getting wives’ ( letter to W. D. Fox, 25 February [1868] ). …
  • … of females was remarked upon by other entomologists ( letter from Roland Trimen, 20 February 1868 …
  • … and Coleoptera on 9 September . Darwin annotated a letter sent on 3 April by Henry Doubleday …
  • … for as sure as life he wd find the odour sexual!’ ( letter to A . R. Wallace, 16 September [1868] …
  • … George Robert Crotch, writing to his mother Emma in a letter dated [after 16 October 1868] : ‘I …
  • … box of preparations to papa … I will write a less beetley letter soon.’ Other relations …
  • … present had taken no particular interest in the dyed hen ( letter from Harrison Weir, 28 March 1868 …
  • … in the great question of the “Origin of Species”’ ( letter from A. R. Wallace, 4 October 1868 ). …
  • … weapon in the hands of the enemies of Nat. Selection’ ( letter from A. R. Wallace, 8 [April] 1868 …
  • … from family, friends, and colleagues. For the zoologist Alfred Newton, the achievement of the son …
  • … theory of descent with modification’ ( letter from Alfred Newton, 29 January 1868 ). …

2.14 Boehm, Westminster Abbey roundel

Summary

< Back to Introduction A bronze plaque or medallion with a portrayal of Darwin was installed in Westminster Abbey in 1888, six years after his grand funeral and burial there. Like the seated statue of Darwin in the Natural History Museum of 1884–1885…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Darwin’s half-cousin Francis Galton proposed, in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette , that Darwin …
  • … with profile heads of John Couch Adams, Joseph Lister, and Alfred Russel Wallace were inserted in a …

2.23 Hope Pinker statue, Oxford Museum

Summary

< Back to Introduction Henry Richard Hope Pinker’s life-size statue of Darwin was installed in the Oxford University Museum on 14 June 1899. It was the latest in a series of statues of great scientific thinkers, the ‘Founders and Improvers of Natural…

Matches: 8 hits

  • … in the phenomenon of protective mimicry among insects. Alfred Russel Wallace, in a letter to his …
  • … proposal was adopted, and thus the figures of Darwin and Newton flank the archway leading through …
  • … they were ‘quite common place without being vulgar’. A letter in the Hope Pinker collection of …
  • … in Caen limestone 
 references and bibliography Letter from William Darwin to his father …
  • … (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press}, vol. 26. Undated letter from ‘Waller’ to Hope Pinker, …
  • … of letters, Royal Academy archive, HRHP/LPM/UVW31). Undated letter from H.E. Luxmoore of Eton …
  • … Selection (London, Paris, Melbourne: Cassell, 1896). Letter from Poulton to Acland, 25 Nov. 1896, …
  • … 2, 1897 ), proof copy, OUM archive, Box 1, HM 1874–1902. Letter, dated ‘Oxford, Dec. 10’ [c. 1896 …

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: 19 hits

  • his University) and is much less his own man. A letter from England catches his attention
  • 11   My dear HookerWhat a remarkably nice and kind letter Dr A. Gray has sent me in answer to my
  • be of any the least use to you? If so I would copy itHis letter does strike me as most uncommonly
  • on the geographical distribution of the US plants; and if my letter caused you to do this some year
  • a brace of letters 25   I send enclosed [a letter for you from Asa Gray], received
  • might like to see it; please be sure [to] return it. If your letter is Botanical and has nothing
  • Atlantic. HOOKER:   28   Thanks for your letter and its enclosure from A. Gray which
  • expresses his Christian belief and Darwin discovers that Alfred Wallace has developed his own
  • The contents of the package (an essay from New Guinea from Alfred Russel Wallace) throws Darwin into
  • notions of natural Selection and would see whether it or my letter bears any date, I should be very
  • 55   My good dear friend, forgive me. This is a trumpery letter influenced by trumpery feelings. …
  • intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.  / Let each man hope and believe
  • do a good deal to secure it. Darwin passes Grays letter to Hooker with a cringe. …
  • full relief from all anxiety. Darwin shows Grays letter to Hooker. DARWIN:  …
  • back. JANE GRAY:   189   [Jane Gray. Letter to her sister. Fall, 1868.] Mr Darwin
  • DARWIN:   192   My dear Gray. When I look over your letter[s] … and see all the things you
  • me, and yet was most anxious till two days ago, when I got a letter from him in excellent spirits. …
  • were laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, near to those of Newton. [A setting of Proverbs, Chapter 13, …
  • TO GRAY AT THIS TIME 189 JANE LORING GRAY, LETTER TO HER SISTER, 1868 or 1869

1.14 William Richmond, oil

Summary

< Back to Introduction William Blake Richmond’s portrait of Darwin, dating from 1879, celebrated his honorary degree of LL.D (Doctor in Laws), awarded by Cambridge University in 1877. Darwin’s return to his alma mater for the presentation ceremony…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … members of the University, with the ornithologist Professor Alfred Newton (one of the first converts …
  • … of Fine Art at Oxford in this same year.   In a letter of 18 June 1879, Darwin told Thiselton …

Darwin in letters,1870: Human evolution

Summary

The year 1870 is aptly summarised by the brief entry Darwin made in his journal: ‘The whole of the year at work on the Descent of Man & Selection in relation to Sex’.  Descent was the culmination of over three decades of observations and reflections on…

Matches: 29 hits

  • … to the application of natural selection to humans from Alfred Russel Wallace and St George Jackson …
  • … shall be a man again & not a horrid grinding machine’  ( letter to Charles Lyell, 25 December …
  • … anything which has happened to me for some weeks’  ( letter to Albert Günther, 13 January [1870] ) …
  • … corrections of style, the more grateful I shall be’  ( letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870] ) …
  • … who wd ever have thought that I shd. turn parson?’ ( letter to H. E. Darwin, [8 February 1870] ). …
  • … abt any thing so unimportant as the mind of man!’ ( letter from H. E. Darwin, [after 8 February …
  • … thro’ apes & savages at the moral sense of mankind’ ( letter to F. P. Cobbe, 23 March [1870?] …
  • … how metaphysics & physics form one great philosophy?’ ( letter from F. P. Cobbe, 28 March [1870 …
  • … in thanks for the drawing ( Correspondence  vol. 16, letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 November [1868] …
  • … patients, but it did not confirm Duchenne’s findings ( letter from James Crichton-Browne, 15 March …
  • … muscle’, he complained, ‘is the bane of existence!’ ( letter to William Ogle, 9 November 1870 ). …
  • … to their belief that all demons and spirits were white ( letter from W. W. Reade, 9 November 1870 …
  • … . . Could you make it scream without hurting it much?’ ( letter to A. D. Bartlett, 5 January [1870] …
  • … or crying badly; but I fear he will not succeed’ ( letter to James Crichton-Browne, 8 June [1870] …
  • … Lucy Wedgwood, who sent a sketch of a baby’s brows ( letter from L. C. Wedgwood, [5 May 1870] ). …
  • … is the inclination to finish my note on this subject’  ( letter from F. C. Donders, 17 May 1870 ). …
  • … , the public debate over human evolution grew more heated. Alfred Russel Wallace had expressed …
  • … the previous year (see  Correspondence  vol. 17, letter to A. R. Wallace, 14 April 1869 ). His …
  • … (in retrograde direction) naturalist’ (letter to A. R.Wallace, 26 January [1870]). …
  • … towards each other, though in one sense rivals’ ( letter to A. R. Wallace, 20 April [1870] ). …
  • … version of the theory of descent by natural selection in a letter to Darwin, prompting much anxiety …
  • … But who is to criticise them? No one but yourself’ ( letter from H. W. Bates, 20 May 1870 ). …
  • … me to be able to say that I  never  write reviews’ ( letter to H. W. Bates, [22 May 1870] ). …
  • … design. Darwin commented on Mivart’s essay in a letter to William Henry Flower: ‘I am glad …
  • … time wd be wasted if I once began to answer objectors’ ( letter to W. H. Flower, 25 March [1870] ) …
  • … laborious & valuable labours on the Primates’ ( letter to St G. J. Mivart, 23 April [1870] ). …
  • … Ape than such an Ape differs from a lump of granite’ ( letter from St G. J. Mivart, 22 April 1870 …
  • … his “end” whatever may have been his “origin” ( letter from St G. J. Mivart, 25 April 1870 ). In …
  • … Albert Günther, Joseph Hooker, Rudolf Albert von Kölliker, Alfred Newton, Robert Swinhoe, and …

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: 16 hits

  • … [Reimarius 1760] The Highlands & Western Isl ds  letter to Sir W Scott [MacCulloch 1824 …
  • … 1834–40]: In Portfolio of “abstracts” 34  —letter from Skuckard of books on Silk Worm …
  • … M rs  Fry’s Life [Fry 1847] Horace Walpoles letter to C t . of Ossory [Walpole 1848] …
  • … Asiatic Society ]—contains very little Macleay’s letter to D r  Fleming [Macleay 1830] …
  • … [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. 319–28). 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. 1832.  A letter in vindication of   the principles of …
  • … by Bekhur to   Garoo and the Lake Manasarowara: with a letter from … J.   G. Gerard, Esq. …
  • … 1830. On the dying struggle of the dichotomous sytem. In a letter to N. A. Vigors.  Philosophical …
  • … 180; 128: 5, 9 Moquin-Tandon, Horace Bénédict Alfred. 1841.  Éléments   de tératologie …
  • … *119: 8v., 22v.; *128: 165 ——. 1850a. Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, on the question of …
  • … art of improving the   breeds of domestic animals. In a letter addressed to the   Right Hon. Sir …
  • … Library.]  *119: 5v., 7v.; 119: 5a Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1853.  A narrative of travels …
  • … 1820.  Remarks on the improvement of   cattle, &c. in a letter to Sir John Saunders Sebright, …

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: 28 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 OldhamThey club together to buy them’ ( letter from W. B. Dawkins, 23 February 1871 ). …
  • ones 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-powerand 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 avery 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 lifeat some time in the past ( letter from Roland Trimen, 17 and 18 April
  • to the white’. Darwin thanked Innes for hispleasant 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 hisclerical brethren’ ( letter from George Henslow, 5 December 1871 ) …
  • from one and the same  catarrhine monkey !’ ( letter from Ernst Haeckel, 21 December 1871 ). …
  • review asa windbag full of metaphysics &amp; classics’ ( letter to John Murray, 13 April [1871] …
  • law &amp;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, [39
  • sense was especially troubling to Emma, as indicated in a letter that she wrote to Cobbe on 25
  • was emotionally and morally bound. In one particularly long letter to Wedgwood, Darwin alluded to
  • letters in August, on one occasion penning just two lines to Alfred Russel Wallace, ‘I am so giddy I
  • … `’the age of Darwin’’, as we now speak of the age of Newton’ ( letter from Napoleon de la Fleurière