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From Charles Lyell   10 March 1866

Summary

Comments on cool-period MS. Still believes geographical changes principal cause of former changes of climate.

Author:  Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  10 Mar 1866
Classmark:  K. M. Lyell ed. 1881, 2: 408–9
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5031

Matches: 2 hits

  • … very interesting to read Hooker’s letter dated 1856, and to see the impression which the …
  • … atlas ). CD sent Lyell Hooker’s letter of 9 November 1856 ( Correspondence vol.  6) with …

To J. D. Hooker   8 August [1866]

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Summary

Admits that occasional transport is not a well-established hypothesis but believes it more probable than continental extension as an explanation for the stocking of islands.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:  8 Aug [1866]
Classmark:  DAR 115: 297
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5185

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter to Charles Lyell, 25 June [1856] . See also letter to J.   …
  • … 1855  and in the letter from E.  W.  V.  Harcourt, 31 May 1856 ( Correspondence vol.  6). …

From W. E. Darwin   21 June [1866]

Summary

"It [Rhamnus catharticus?] is certainly a case of dimorphic become dioecious."

Author:  William Erasmus Darwin
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  21 June [1866]
Classmark:  DAR 109: A80
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5129

Matches: 2 hits

  • … is said, polygamous’ ( Bromfield 1856 , p.  107). See letter to W.  E.  Darwin, 22 June [ …
  • letter from W.  E.  Darwin, 20 June [1866] and nn.  3 and 6. William refers to the description of Rhamnus cathartica in Bromfield 1856 , …

From W. B. Tegetmeier   22 January [1866]

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Summary

Discusses pigeon and poultry woodcuts [for Variation].

WBT’s poultry book is at last in the hands of a solvent publisher [The poultry book (1867)].

Author:  William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  22 Jan [1866]
Classmark:  DAR 178: 71
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4983

Matches: 3 hits

  • … and Johnson 1856–7 for details of work by others than Tegetmeier ( ibid. , letter to W.   …
  • … refer to Wingfield and Johnson 1856–7 (see Correspondence vol.  13, letter from W.  B.   …
  • 1856 and 1857, a revised edition, edited by Tegetmeier, was published in parts by William S.  Orr and Co. ( Correspondence vol.  6, letter

To J. D. Hooker   30 July [1866]

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Summary

His reasons for rejecting Atlantis hypothesis connecting Madeira and Canary Islands.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:  30 July [1866]
Classmark:  DAR 115: 294, 294b
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5167

Matches: 3 hits

  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter to Charles Lyell, 25 June [1856] ). On the Atlantis …
  • … n.  6. See letter from J.  D.  Hooker, [24 July 1866] and n.  8. In 1856, CD had objected …
  • letters from J.  D.  Hooker, [17 August 1866] and 18 August 1866 ). CD refers to T.  V.  Wollaston 1854 , p.  xii, and T.  V.  Wollaston  1856 , …

To A. R. Wallace   [6 February 1866]

Summary

ARW’s simple explanation of dimorphic forms is satisfactory.

On "non-blending" of certain varieties, CD thinks ARW has not understood him. He does not refer to fertility. He crossed two differently coloured varieties of peas and "got both varieties perfect, but none intermediate". Something like this must occur in ARW’s butterflies.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:  [6 Feb 1866]
Classmark:  The British Library (Add 46434, f. 64)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4989

Matches: 1 hit

  • … vol.  6, letters to Gardeners’ Chronicle , [before 6 December 1856] and 18 October [1857], …

To John Lubbock   15 November 1866

Summary

Asks JL to look up a paper by Thomas Hincks on Polyzoa or Bryozoa [Q. J. Microsc. Sci. 2d ser. 1 (1861): 278–81].

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
Date:  15 Nov 1866
Classmark:  DAR 261.7: 1 (EH 88205926)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5278

Matches: 1 hit

  • … in Bryozoa, see Correspondence vol.  6, letter to T.  H.  Huxley, 8 June [1856] . …

To Robert Caspary   21 February [1866]

Summary

Requests copy of paper read at Amsterdam Horticultural Congress, on graft-hybrids like that of Cytisus adami [see 5018].

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Johann Xaver Robert (Robert) Caspary
Date:  21 Feb [1866]
Classmark:  Yale University: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (GEN MSS MISC Group 1559 F-2)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5012

Matches: 1 hit

  • … D. Hooker, 8 September [1856] , and Correspondence vol.  10, letter to Daniel Oliver, 24  …

From J. D. Hooker   9 August 1866

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Summary

More on continental extension vs transport [or migration] hypothesis. New questions raised. On Madeira, why were insects and plants changed so much, birds hardly at all?

Erratic boulders of the Azores.

Author:  Joseph Dalton Hooker
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  9 Aug 1866
Classmark:  DAR 102: 94–7
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5186

Matches: 1 hit

  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter to Charles Lyell, 25 June [1856] , for CD’s rejection of …

To Charles Lyell   7 February [1866]

Summary

Discussion of Mrs Agassiz’s letter [to Mary Lyell, forwarded to CD] regarding S. American glacial action,

with comments on Bunbury’s letter on temperate plants.

Refers to opinions of Agassiz, David Forbes, Hooker, and CD on glacial period and glaciers.

Wishes he had published a long chapter on glacial period [Natural selection, pp. 535–66] written ten years ago.

Tells of death of his sister, Catherine, and other family matters.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:  7 Feb [1866]
Classmark:  American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.312)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4999

Matches: 2 hits

  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter to Charles Lyell, 8  July [1856] , and Correspondence …
  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter from J.  D.  Hooker, 9 November 1856  and n.  2). CD argued …

From J. D. Hooker   21 February 1866

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Summary

Had Busks and Lyells to dinner.

Examines and criticises evidence for CD’s hypothesis that the glacial period was not one of universal cold. Physicists deny its possibility.

Author:  Joseph Dalton Hooker
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  21 Feb 1866
Classmark:  DAR 102: 59, 62–4
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5013

Matches: 1 hit

  • … a memorandum enclosed with his letter to CD of 9 November 1856 ( Correspondence vol.  6). …

To Charles Lyell   8 March [1866]

Summary

Gives details of enclosed MS on cool period. Mentions Hooker’s opposed "axis of the earth" view. Causes of glacial period are beyond CD; "cannot believe change in land and water being more than a subsidiary agent".

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:  8 Mar [1866]
Classmark:  American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.316)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5028

Matches: 1 hit

  • … CD also refers to the letter from J.  D.  Hooker, 9 November 1856 ( Correspondence vol.   …

To Williams & Norgate   10 February [1866]

Summary

Orders Richard Owen’s Anatomy of vertebrates [1866–8],

subscribes to Annals and Magazine of Natural History,

and orders three back numbers of Medical Times and Gazette.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Williams & Norgate
Date:  10 Feb [1866]
Classmark:  Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (ASHCOMBE COLLECTION/V/52)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5002

Matches: 1 hit

  • … stopped subscribing between 1856 and 1864 (see also Correspondence vol.  8, letter to John …

To Fritz Müller   11 January 1866

Summary

Has read FM’s paper on sponges ["Über Darwinella aurea", Arch. Miskrosk. Anat. 1 (1865): 344–53] with interest.

Has also read FM’s work on the metamorphoses of Peneus [Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3d ser. 14 (1864): 104–15], an interesting and important embryological discovery.

CD regards Louis Agassiz’s opinions as valueless.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller
Date:  11 Jan 1866
Classmark:  The British Library (Loan MS 10 no 5)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4972

Matches: 1 hit

  • … he had lived from 1854 to 1856 (see Correspondence vol.  13, letter from Fritz Müller, 5  …

To William Ewart Gladstone   14 May 1866

Summary

Memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the fellows of the Royal, Linnean, Geological, and Zoological Societies of London, stating the importance of separating the administration of the national natural history collections of the British Museum from that of the library and art collections, and placing it in the hands of one officer, immediately responsible to one of the Queen’s ministers.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  William Ewart Gladstone
Date:  14 May 1866
Classmark:  Gunther 1975, p. 238 (facsimile of printed copy of memorial)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5090F

Matches: 1 hit

  • … referred to in the letter from Charles Lyell, 1 March 1866 . In 1856, a new post had been …

From Daniel Oliver   9 June 1866

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Summary

Identifies a plant.

CD will not find Hermann Schacht’s Lehrbuch [der Anatomie und Physiologie der Gewächse (1856–9)] at the Linnean Society Library.

Author:  Daniel Oliver
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  9 June 1866
Classmark:  DAR 173: 32
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5116

Matches: 2 hits

  • letter to J.  D.  Hooker, [4 June 1866] . Oliver refers to the Lehrbuch der Anatomie und Physiologie der Gewächse (Textbook on the anatomy and physiology of perennials) by Hermann Schacht ( Schacht 1856– …
  • 1856–9 , 2: 12, on ‘adventitious buds’, which CD said might be formed ‘almost anywhere’ in plants. CD occasionally requested books from the library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, when he was unable to obtain a copy from the Linnean Society (see, for example, Correspondence vol.  8, letter

To Charles Lyell   15 February [1866]

Summary

Thanks CL for Hooker’s letter.

Discussion of Hooker’s views on glacial action and temperature with specific reference to S. America.

His squabbles with Hooker on transport of seeds via water currents,

temperate plants, and preservation of tropical plants during cooler period.

Expresses interest in seeing Agassiz’s letter.

Author:  Charles Robert Darwin
Addressee:  Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:  15 Feb [1866]
Classmark:  American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.313)
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5007

Matches: 1 hit

  • … Correspondence vol.  6, letter from J.  D. Hooker, 9 November 1856 ). In Origin , p.  374, …

From Francis Trevelyan Buckland   29 September 1866

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Summary

Sends copy of Land and Water, a journal he now edits. Has quit the Field. Asks CD to patronise his columns with queries, as other zoologists do.

Author:  Francis Trevelyan (Frank) Buckland
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  29 Sept 1866
Classmark:  DAR 160: 360
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5223

Matches: 1 hit

  • 1856, but had severed his connection in 1865 (for more on Buckland’s falling-out with editors of the Field , see Burgess 1967 , pp.  113–16). CD had sought information on various topics in letters

From Ernst Haeckel   28 January 1866

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Summary

Discusses exchange of photographs with German scientists.

Comments on attitudes of German scientists toward CD’s theory.

Names several scientists who exchanged photographs: Braun, Virchow, Leydig, and Dohrn.

Author:  Ernst Philipp August (Ernst) Haeckel
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  28 Jan 1866
Classmark:  DAR 166: 42
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-4985

Matches: 1 hit

  • 1856, Virchow’s and von Leydig’s lectures at the University of Würzburg ( DSB , Krauße 1987 , pp.  18–28, and DBE ). Haeckel had previously informed CD of Braun’s and Virchow’s support for his work in his letters

From W. B. Tegetmeier   [after 4 August 1866]

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Summary

Alterations to the woodcuts of poultry for Variation.

Author:  William Bernhard Tegetmeier
Addressee:  Charles Robert Darwin
Date:  [after 4 Aug 1866]
Classmark:  DAR 178: 74
Letter no:  DCP-LETT-5180

Matches: 1 hit

  • 1856 ). Tegetmeier had asked CD to change the references in Variation from an earlier and incomplete edition of The poultry book to his own edition ( Tegetmeier 1867 ). See letter
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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 …
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