To Charles Lyell [25 June 1858]
Summary
Everything in Wallace’s sketch also appears in CD’s sketch of 1844. A year ago CD sent a short sketch of his views to Asa Gray. Can CD honourably publish his sketch now that Wallace has sent outline of his views? "I would far rather burn my whole book than that he or any man shd. think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit." Does not believe Wallace originated his views from anything CD wrote to him.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | [25 June 1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.153) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2294 |
Matches: 3 hits
To J. D. Hooker 11 March [1858]
Summary
JDH’s "objection" that small local genera do not vary and mundane ones do, is exactly CD’s point. Local floras useful to test idea that varieties are incipient species. Same genus in different countries cannot be lumped.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 11 Mar [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 228 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2239 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 January [1858]
Summary
CD has never doubted probability of Bering Strait land connection.
Family illness.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 15 Jan [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 221 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2203 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … 30 July [1856] , and letter from J. D. …
- … Hooker, 4 August 1856 ). See Correspondence vol. 6, letter from J. D. …
- … see Correspondence vol. 6, especially letters to J. D. Hooker, 19 July [1856] and …
- … 1856 . The Philosophical Club of the Royal Society, of which both CD and Hooker were members, met monthly. A meeting was held on 21 January 1858 ( Bonney 1919 , p. 137). Leonard Darwin , who had just turned 8, had experienced a breakdown in his health in 1857 (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter …
To William Bernhard Tegetmeier 17 January [1858]
Summary
Has received Burmese fowls’ skins from Walter Elliot.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | 17 Jan [1858] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2205 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 6, letter to Walter Elliot, 23 January 1856 ). CD received one …
- … 1857 ( ibid. vol. 6, letters to W. B.Tegetmeier, 3 November [1856] and to J. D. Hooker, …
- … letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 14 April [1858] , that this was a mistake. CD had asked Walter Elliot , a member of the council of the governor of Madras, to send him skins of domestic pigeons and poultry in 1856 ( …
To Charles Lyell 18 July [1858]
Summary
Thanks for abstract of Etna paper [Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 148 (1858): 703–86]. Never expected to see Élie de Beaumont’s theory ["craters of elevation"] so completely upset. "He must have picked out favourable cases for measurement."
More than satisfied by what was done at Linnean Society [joint reading of CD’s and Wallace’s papers: "Tendency of species to form varieties", Collected papers 2: 3–19]. Intends to prepare longer abstract.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 18 July [1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.155) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2309 |
To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 13 November 1858]
Summary
Reports the decreased yield of pods resulting from excluding bees from the flowers of the kidney bean. Gives other observations suggesting the importance of bees in the fertilisation of papilionaceous flowers.
Cites cases of crosses between varieties of bean grown close together and requests observations from readers on the subject. States his belief "that is a law of nature that every organic being should occasionally be crossed with a different individual of the same species".
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Gardeners’ Chronicle |
| Date: | [before 13 Nov 1858] |
| Classmark: | Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 13 November 1858, pp. 828–9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2359 |
To Walter Elliot 12 December [1858]
Summary
Thanks WE for an oriental treatise on pigeons, a paper on poultry, and specimens.
Asks about stripes on shoulders and legs of horses and donkeys.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Walter Elliot |
| Date: | 12 Dec [1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.162) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2380 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 6, letter to Walter Elliot, 26 January 1856) . The treatise to which …
- … 7, below). Elliot’s letter has not been found. He had corresponded with CD since 1856 (see …
- … 1856. See Correspondence vol. 6 and Variation 1: 132 n. 1. CD received a shipment of Burmese fowls sent by Elliot earlier in the year (see letter …
To T. C. Eyton 11 October [1858]
Summary
Asks about dirt clinging to feet of birds as means of seed distribution.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Thomas Campbell Eyton |
| Date: | 11 Oct [1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.159) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2338 |
From J. D. Hooker 18 March 1858
Summary
Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 18 Mar 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 100: 115e–f |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2243 |
To J. D. Hooker 9[–10] November [1858]
Summary
Lyell receives Copley Medal; CD to write notes for JDH’s éloge of Lyell.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 9[–10] Nov [1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 253 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2355 |
To W. B. Tegetmeier [21 April 1858]
Summary
"Excessively" interested in theory of bees’ cell formation.
Fears few of his pigeons will be of any use to WBT.
Hopes WBT will describe foreign poultry breeds.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
| Date: | [21 Apr 1858] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2260 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … of London ( ibid . , letters to W. B. Tegetmeier, [July 1856] and 11 February [1857] ). …
- … Correspondence vol. 6, letters to W. B. Tegetmeier, 29 November [1856] and 4 December [ …
- … letters in the same issue, however, discuss the theory first proposed by the noted bee-keeper Jan Dzierzon and later developed by Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold ( Siebold 1856 ) …
- … letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 14 April [1858] . CD recorded that he began writing about pigeons on 14 June 1858 (‘Journal’; Appendix II). During 1856 …
- … letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 14 April [1858] , n. 5. Temminck 1813–15 . CD recorded having read this work in 1847 ( Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 119: 19a). His notes on it are in DAR 71: 6–19. CD refers to the 1856 …
From William Allport Leighton 19 November 1858
Summary
Sends an account of different colours and shapes of seeds raised from ordinary seeds of scarlet runner. [See Cross and self-fertilisation, p. 151.]
| Author: | William Allport Leighton |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 19 Nov 1858 |
| Classmark: | DAR 77: 149–51 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2366 |
To Leonard Jenyns [28 April 1858]
Summary
Returns MS [of "Variation of species"]; several facts were new to him, especially interested in wagtails.
Wishes he could swallow Florent Prévost on sparrows ["Du régime alimentaire des oiseaux", C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. 46 (1858): 136–8].
LJ’s facts seem to bear out CD’s conclusion that secondary sexual characters were most variable of all.
Explains how he intends to deal with variation, and general facts in natural history in the light of species theory. Can only afford one chapter on variation in nature. It seems more important to make out variation in domestic animals.
Asks for facts on birds’ nests for his chapter on instincts.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Leonard Jenyns; Leonard Blomefield |
| Date: | [28 Apr 1858] |
| Classmark: | Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2264 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … manuscript of Jenyns 1856 , which CD had asked to see in his letter to Leonard Jenyns, 9 …
- … see letter to Leonard Jenyns, 18 April [1858] ). CD’s notes about Jenyns 1856 are in DAR …
- … Letter from Leonard Jenyns, [ before 18 April 1858] . CD refers to the ornithologist Florent Prévost , who divided sparrows into three groups according to their coloration and geographical location. Jenyns had referred to this case, without citing Prévost, in Jenyns 1856 , …
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 |
To Leonard Jenyns 9 April [1858]
Summary
Asks LJ to lend him a copy of his paper ["Variation of species", Rep. BAAS 26 (1856): 101–5] and any notes or references he has. Although CD has a large accumulation of facts, it is impossible to see and consider too many.
His health is poor.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Leonard Jenyns; Leonard Blomefield |
| Date: | 9 Apr [1858] |
| Classmark: | Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2253 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … Correspondence vol. 6, letter from J. S. Henslow, 2 August 1856 ). CD went to Moor Park …
- … 1856 British Association meeting on the variability and possible transmutation of cultivated plants. CD had corresponded with him in 1857 (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter …
- … letter to Leonard Jenyns, 1 April [1858] , and by CD’s reference to a forthcoming trip to Moor Park (see n. 3, below). The Athenæum , 16 August 1856, …
From Leonard Jenyns [before 18 April 1858]
Summary
[Copy of some rough notes.] References about species. Variations within species.
| Author: | Leonard Jenyns; Leonard Blomefield |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 18 Apr 1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 45: 20–4 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2250 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … about the birds of Madeira in 1856 (see Correspondence vol. 6, letter from E. W. …
- … animals ( letter to Leonard Jenyns, 9 April [1858] ). The ‘paper’ is Jenyns 1856 . Gould …
- … V. Harcourt, 31 May 1856) . The information, as given in the letter, was printed in a …
- … 1856): 510–11). Wallace 1855 . CD’s notes on this paper are interleaved with his copy of the issue of Annals and Magazine of Natural History in which it appeared (Darwin Library–CUL). See Correspondence vol. 5, letter …
- … 1856 . Drummond 1843 . The paper was a list of birds found in Corfu drawn up by Henry Maurice Drummond and forwarded to Annals and Magazine of Natural History by Hugh Edwin Strickland , who provided additional notes. CD’s copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL. A letter …
To J. D. Hooker 10 [March 1858]
Summary
Heartened that tabulations of small and large genera done in different ways yield good results. JDH has done some tabulations but has not followed CD’s method of getting equal numbers of small and large genera.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 10 [Mar 1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 227 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2237 |
To Charles Lyell 18 [June 1858]
Summary
Encloses MS by A. R. Wallace. CD has been forestalled. " . . . if Wallace had my MS sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract!" Wallace does not say if he wishes CD to publish MS, but CD will offer to send it to journal.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
| Date: | 18 [June 1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.152) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2285 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … see Correspondence vol. 6, letter from Charles Lyell, 1–2 May 1856 ). Shortly before that …
- … letter of 22 December 1857 that CD mentions that Lyell (and Edward Blyth ) called his attention to the paper (see Correspondence vol. 6). In 1856, …
- … letter was probably posted between 5 and 19 March 1858 and and should therefore have arrived at Down in May ( Brooks 1969 and 1984) or early June ( McKinney 1972 ). See also the Introduction to this volume. CD refers to a visit to Down made by Charles and Mary Elizabeth Lyell from 13 to 16 April 1856. …
To the Secretary, Royal Society 28 September 1858
Summary
Recommends W. B. Carpenter’s latest part of memoir on Foraminifera be published in Philosophical Transactions [R. Soc. Lond. 149 (1859): 1–41].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Royal Society of London |
| Date: | 28 Sept 1858 |
| Classmark: | The Royal Society (RR3: 41) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2330 |
To John Lubbock 30 [March? 1858]
Summary
Comments and criticisms on JL’s paper [possibly: "On the development of Chloëon dimidiatum", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1863): 61–78].
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury |
| Date: | 30 [Mar? 1858] |
| Classmark: | DAR 263: 23 (EH 88206472) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2397 |
| letter | (56) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (41) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (6) |
| Baikie, W. B. | (1) |
| Blomefield, Leonard | (1) |
| Coe, Henry | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (17) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (15) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (6) |
| Lyell, Charles | (4) |
| Blomefield, Leonard | (3) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (56) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (23) |
| Tegetmeier, W. B. | (6) |
| Blomefield, Leonard | (4) |
| Jenyns, Leonard | (4) |
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 …
