From J. D. Hooker 10 July 1856
Summary
[T. Bell Salter’s?] "hybrid" Epilobium a false claim.
Admires Huxley’s response to Falconer [see 1904].
Tristan da Cunha plant list, requested by CD, supports JDH’s position [on continental extension?].
Chilean plants not exceptional.
JDH considers parallels between Australian Alps and European plants strong evidence for multiple creations.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 July 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 96–9 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1923 |
Matches: 8 hits
- … Hooker, [26 June or 3 July 1856] , and letter to J. D. Hooker, 5 July [1856] . …
- … provinces. T. H. Huxley 1856b , a response to Falconer 1856 . See letters to J. D. …
- … Hooker, 5 [July 1856] . See letter to J. D. …
- … to J. D. Hooker, 5 July [1856] . See letter from J. D. …
- … of the same point in the insect kingdom (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 5 July [1856] ). …
- … Hooker, 21 [May 1856] and 17–18 [June 1856]. T. H. Huxley 1855 . See letter to J. D. …
- … and Arnott 1855. See letter from J. D. Hooker, [26 June or 3 July 1856] . John Stevens …
- … 1856] , n. 3. The list was annotated by Hooker, giving brief descriptions of the localities inhabited by the twelve species. At the bottom, CD wrote: ‘These genera, Hooker says are not particularly wide rangers; but species with restricted ranges. — Nothing particular in short. —’ CD used Hooker’s information in Natural selection , pp. 553–4. Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller was the government botanist in Melbourne, Australia. From 1853, he issued annual reports on the vegetation of the colony. See letter …
From J. D. Hooker [26 June or 3 July 1856]
Summary
Can no longer make out story of NW. American plants; consulting Asa Gray.
Questionable validity of seed-salting experiments.
Aristolochia and Viscum seem to shed pollen before flower opens.
Ray Society should only do translations.
Thomas Thomson in India has rediscovered Aldrovanda, a rare relative of Drosera.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [26 June or 3 July] 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 197 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1911 |
Matches: 7 hits
- … 5 [July 1856] . See letter to J. D. Hooker, 22 June [1856] . CD was anxious to ascertain …
- … asking the same question (see letter to Asa Gray, 14 July [1856] ). Hooker was mistaken in …
- … to J. D. Hooker, 22 June [1856] . See letter to T. H. Huxley, 4 May [1856] , in which …
- … and Hewett Cottrell Watson ( letter from H. C. Watson, 5 June 1856) whether these species …
- … dates are the two Thursdays between the letters to J. D. Hooker, 22 June [1856] and …
- … annotations, above, and letter from J. D. Hooker, 10 July 1856 ). Ludwig Radlkofer was an …
- … 1856 ). Siebold overturned Richard Owen’s definition of parthenogenesis ( Owen 1849 ) by showing that the cells from which new organisms developed were true ova and not simply pre-existing ‘germinal’ cells contained within the parent’s body. Siebold demonstrated that these ova were capable of development without fertilisation. See Farley 1982 , pp. 100–5. See letter …
From J. D. Hooker 22 November 1856
Summary
Continued debate on formation of species as a result of retreat from glaciers.
JDH suggests internal powers of species modification, which he knows CD abhors.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 22 Nov 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 111–12 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1995 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … Hooker, 23 November [1856] ). See letter from Asa …
- … Hooker, 18 November [1856] . CD did not communicate this information (see letter to J. D. …
- … See letter to J. D. Hooker, 18 November [1856] and n. 2. Thomas Thomson was …
- … 4 November 1856 , which CD had sent to Hooker to read. The remainder of the letter is …
From J. D. Hooker 4 August 1856
Summary
JDH’s arguments against transmutation: 1. Plants do not show the confusion he would expect; 2. Under clearly similar physical conditions we do not find same species.
JDH’s argument against migration: commonality of alpine species. Believes migration opposes facts of botanical distribution in Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand; prefers continental extension theory.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Aug 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 100–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1937 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … Aug 4 th . 1856 Dear Darwin Thanks for Lyells letters which are very tough reading— I …
- … in 1860 ( J. D. Hooker 1855 [–60]). See letter from Charles Lyell, 17 June 1856 . …
- … See letter to Charles Lyell, 5 July [1856] . An allusion to the transmutationist views …
- … See letter to J. D. Hooker, 30 July [1856] . Godwin-Austen 1856 was read at a meeting of …
- … Chambers] 1844 ). See letter to J. D. Hooker, 30 July [1856] . In a lecture delivered at …
From J. D. Hooker 7 November 1862
Summary
JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].
JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 7 Nov 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 68–9, 73–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3797 |
From J. D. Hooker [early December 1856]
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [early Dec 1856] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 149 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1966 |
From J. D. Hooker [16 November 1856]
Summary
JDH not happy with CD’s explanation of the absence of north temperate forms in the Southern Hemisphere, given his explanation for the spread of sub-arctic forms to the south. [CD’s note is in response to JDH’s criticism.]
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [16 Nov 1856] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 162–3 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1622 |
From J. D. Hooker 6 April 1864
Summary
J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.
Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 6 Apr 1864 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 204–5; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Directors’ Correspondence English letters Balfour 1866–1900 vol. 78: 311) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4452 |
From J. D. Hooker 9 November 1856
Summary
JDH approves MS section on geographical distribution.
Never felt so shaky about species before.
His objections to some mechanisms of distribution that CD proposes.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 9 Nov 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 105–10 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1983 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … had been received by CD by 15 November 1856 (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 15 November [ …
- … comments in October (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [16 October 1856] ). The manuscript is …
- … letter. Martins 1849 , in which Charles Frédéric Martins claimed that the number of European plants decreased on northern islands as the distance from Europe increased. See Natural selection , p. 541. CD visited London on 13 November 1856 …
From J. D. Hooker 18 March 1858
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 18 Mar 1858 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 115e–f |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2243 |
From J. D. Hooker [21 November 1859]
Summary
JDH’s congratulations on Origin.
Lyell believes S. P. Woodward wrote review in Athenæum.
Lyell’s and Huxley’s positive responses.
JDH has only plunged into a few chapters.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [21 Nov 1859] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 135–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2539 |
From J. D. Hooker [26 December 1858]
Summary
JDH cannot abide CD’s connection of wide-ranging species and "highness". Australian flora contradicts this in many ways.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [26 Dec 1858] |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 125–6 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2385 |
From J. D. Hooker [23] December 1865
Summary
No one believes in Karsten.
Surprised by CD’s observations that illegitimate crosses within a species produce hybrid-like offspring.
JDH’s scepticism of Scott’s observations.
On proposing James Hector vs Julius von Haast for Royal Society; on learned society honours.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [23] Dec 1865 |
Classmark: | DAR 102: 47–50 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4954 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … p. 324). Hooker visited Vienna in 1856 ( Correspondence vol. 6, letter to J. D. …
- … 1856 appeared in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles ( Botanique ) 7 (1857): 229–46. See letter …
- … 1856 and Radlkofer 1857 , pp. 250–1). Hooker had visited Naudin and Decaisne in Paris in 1863 (see Correspondence vol. 11, letter …
From J. D. Hooker [before 17 March 1855]
Summary
JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].
Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.
Why are flightless insects common in desert?
Australian endemism.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [before 17 Mar 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 210–13 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1644 |
From J. D. Hooker [30 December 1861 or 6 January 1862]
Summary
Glad CD has given up on Acropera ovules.
Doubts phanerogams less different in extreme forms [than Crustacea].
No systematic parallelism between plants and animals.
Offers list of Arctic plants with their colours. Asks CD whether it is useful to add colour to [descriptions of] plants.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [30 Dec] 1861 or [6 Jan] 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 3–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3375 |
Matches: 2 hits
From J. D. Hooker 4 August 1881
Summary
Outlines address to York BAAS meeting on history of geographical distribution. Organising theme: advancement in this science based on ideas enunciated by scientific voyagers. Asks CD’s advice.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Aug 1881 |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 154–7 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-13272 |
From J. D. Hooker 22 December 1858
Summary
Would appreciate loan of CD’s chapter on transmigration across tropics, which may help with the difficulties of Australian distribution.
Still regards plant types as older than animal types.
The Cape of Good Hope and Australian temperate floras cannot be connected by the highlands of Abyssinia.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 22 Dec 1858 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 128–30 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2382 |
From J. D. Hooker 13–15 July 1858
Summary
Sends proofs [of "On the tendency of species to form varieties … ", read 1 July 1858, Collected papers 2: 3–19]. CD could publish his abstract [later the Origin] as a separate supplemental number of [Journal of the Linnean Society].
JDH has studied in detail CD’s manuscript on variable species in large and small genera and concurs with its consequences. Discusses methodological idiosyncrasies of systematists, e.g., Bentham, Robert Brown, and C. C. Babington, which complicate CD’s tabulations.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [13 or 15] July 1858 |
Classmark: | DAR 100: 116–19, 168 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2307 |
From J. D. Hooker [14 March 1858]
Summary
Summary of JDH’s objections to CD’s survey of floras and conclusion that large genera vary more than small.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [14 Mar 1858] |
Classmark: | DAR 104: 182–5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2240 |
From J. D. Hooker 29 March 1864
Summary
John Scott’s career.
Huxley’s vicious attack on anthropologists.
Critique of Joseph Prestwich’s theory of rivers.
Bitter feelings between the Hookers and the Veitch family of nurserymen.
Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 29 Mar 1864 |
Classmark: | DAR 101: 193–7 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4439 |

Darwin in letters, 1856-1857: the 'Big Book'
Summary
In May 1856, Darwin began writing up his 'species sketch’ in earnest. During this period, his working life was completely dominated by the preparation of his 'Big Book', which was to be called Natural selection. Using letters are the main…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 14 May 1856, Charles Darwin recorded in his journal that he ‘Began by Lyell’s advice writing …

Darwin and Fatherhood
Summary
Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten children. It is often assumed that Darwin was an exceptional Victorian father. But how extraordinary was he? The Correspondence Project allows an unusually…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and over the next seventeen years the couple had ten …
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: 1 hits
- … Re: Design – performance version – 25 March 2007 – 1 Re: Design – Adaptation of the …

Origin
Summary
Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to establish priority for the species theory he had spent over twenty years researching. Darwin never intended to write Origin, and had resisted suggestions in 1856…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin’s most famous work, Origin, had an inauspicious beginning. It grew out of his wish to …

Six things Darwin never said – and one he did
Summary
Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly attributed to Darwin that never flowed from his pen.
Matches: 1 hits
- … Spot the fakes! Darwin is often quoted – and as often misquoted. Here are some sayings regularly …
Dates of composition of Darwin's manuscript on species
Summary
Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s manuscript on species (DAR 8--15.1, inclusive; transcribed and published as Natural selection). This manuscript, begun in May 1856, was nearly completed by…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Many of the dates of letters in 1856 and 1857 were based on or confirmed by reference to Darwin’s …
Women’s scientific participation
Summary
Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants …

Descent
Summary
There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…
Matches: 1 hits
- … ‘ Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming …

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: 1 hits
- … On the origin of species by means of natural selection …so begins the title of Darwin’s most …

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: 1 hits
- … In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to …

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: 1 hits
- … In 1882, Darwin reached his 74th year Earthworms had been published the previous October, and …

Before Origin: the ‘big book’
Summary
Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his eight-year study of barnacles (Darwin's Journal). He had long considered the question of species. In 1842, he outlined a theory of transmutation in a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin began ‘sorting notes for Species Theory’ on 9 September 1854, the very day he concluded his …
Scientific Networks
Summary
Friendship|Mentors|Class|Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific network is a set of connections between people, places, and things that channel the communication of knowledge, and that substantially determine both its intellectual form and content,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Friendship | Mentors | Class | Gender In its broadest sense, a scientific …

Thomas Henry Huxley
Summary
Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a leading Victorian zoologist, science popularizer, and education reformer. He was born in Ealing, a small village west of London, in 1825. With only two years of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog” for his combative role in controversies over evolution, Huxley was a …

Darwin in letters, 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
Summary
At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of animals and plants under domestication, anticipating with excitement the construction of a hothouse to accommodate his increasingly varied botanical experiments…
Matches: 1 hits
- … At the start of 1863, Charles Darwin was actively working on the manuscript of The variation of …

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: 1 hits
- … ‘My career’, Darwin wrote towards the end of 1872, ‘is so nearly closed. . . What little more I …
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: 1 hits
- … < Back to Introduction In September 1874, the American doctor Joseph Simms, then on a …

Language: key letters
Summary
How and why language evolved bears on larger questions about the evolution of the human species, and the relationship between man and animals. Darwin presented his views on the development of human speech from animal sounds in The Descent of Man (1871),…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The origin of language was investigated in a wide range of disciplines in the nineteenth century. …

Hermann Müller
Summary
Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the younger brother of Fritz Müller (1822–97). Following the completion of his secondary education at Erfurt in 1848, he studied natural sciences at Halle and Berlin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the …

Darwin in letters, 1858-1859: Origin
Summary
The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet rural existence filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on species, he was jolted into action by the arrival of an unexpected letter from Alfred Russel Wallace…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet …