To George Bentham 30 November [1856]
Summary
Thanks GB for information on Leguminosae, especially about those with apetalous flowers and almost without anthers.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | George Bentham |
Date: | 30 Nov [1856] |
Classmark: | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Bentham Correspondence, Vol. 3, Daintree–Dyer, 1830–1884, GEB/1/3: f. 685) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2005 |
To John Phillips 28 January [1856]
Summary
Thanks JP for beautiful book [? The rivers, mountains and sea-coast of Yorkshire, 2d ed. (1855)].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | John Phillips |
Date: | 28 Jan [1856] |
Classmark: | Oxford University Museum of Natural History Archive Collections (John Phillips collection)) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1828 |
To Samuel Birch [12 March 1856]
Summary
Arranges an appointment.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Samuel Birch |
Date: | [12 Mar 1856] |
Classmark: | British Museum (Department of the Middle East, correspondence 1826–67: 1489) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1841A |
From John Obadiah Westwood 23 November 1856
Summary
The Kentucky cave insects (Adelops) are evidently identical to European species of the same genus, some of which are cave insects, others found in damp, dark places.
Author: | John Obadiah Westwood |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 23 Nov 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 297 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1998 |
To W. D. Fox 30 October [1857]
Summary
Has come to think his brains were not made for thinking – he immediately feels better when at Moor Park.
News of his family.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Darwin Fox |
Date: | 30 Oct [1857] |
Classmark: | Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 104) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2161 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 November [1856]
Summary
CD finds JDH’s objections to a mundane cold period significant, and he endeavours to show how they do not rule out mutability.
He is writing on crossing.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 15 Nov [1856] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 182 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1989 |
From C. J. F. Bunbury 16 April 1856
Summary
Is interested by what CD tells him about his researches and speculations on species, variation, and distribution. Hopes he will not give up the idea of publishing his views. Advises CD on need for caution and candour. Raises some difficulties with "specific centre" theory of distribution.
Author: | Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 16 Apr 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 218 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1854 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … from C. J. F. Bunbury, 7 February 1856 . See letter from C. J. F. Bunbury, 7 February …
- … 9, and letter from Charles Lyell, 1–2 May 1856 , n. 7. E. Forbes 1854 . Discussed by …
- … s further views on CD’s theories, see letter to C. J. F. Bunbury, 21 April [1856] , n. …
- … 1856 My dear Darwin, I hardly know how to account for my long silence, after the very interesting letter …
CD memorandum [December 1855]
Summary
Requests skins of domestic breeds or races of poultry, pigeons, rabbits, cats, and dogs from any unfrequented region. [Attached is a list of people to whom CD has written for pigeon and poultry skins.]
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Unidentified |
Date: | [Dec 1855] |
Classmark: | DAR 206: 34–5 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1812 |
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 Peter Wallace 10 September 1856
Author: | Peter Wallace |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 10 Sept 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 261 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1953 |
From W. B. Tegetmeier 4 May [1861]
Author: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 May [1861] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.2: 256 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3139 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … B. Tegetmeier, 24 June [1856], and letter from Charles Lyell, …
- … manifest. See Correspondence vol. 6, letters to W. D. Fox, 15 March [1856] , and to W. …
- … 1856 , n. 10. See also Origin , pp. 445–6, and Variation 1: 178, 248–50. Bernard Peirce Brent was a frequent contributor to both the Cottage Gardener and the Field on various subjects pertaining to domesticated birds and animals. Tegetmeier’s paper on Antwerp carrier pigeons did not appear in the Natural History Review , of which Thomas Henry Huxley was chief editor. See letters …
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 William Henry Harvey 3 January 1857
Summary
Sexes of algae.
Author: | William Henry Harvey |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 3 Jan 1857 |
Classmark: | DAR 166: 115 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2035 |
From Charles Lyell 28 August 1860
Summary
Objections to Origin which Owen and Wilberforce could have used. Why have incipient mammalian forms not arisen from lower vertebrates on islands separated since Miocene period? Knows CD would not derive Eocene Mammalia from higher reptiles, but would bats not be modified into other mammalian forms on an ancient island? This is not the case in New Zealand. Why have island seals not become terrestrial? Assumes rate of change is greatest in mammals. Difficulties are small compared with ability to explain absence of Mammalia in pre-Pliocene islands. Asks about descent of Amblyrhynchus. Believes objections apply equally well to independent creation of animal types, but not if the First Cause is allowed completely free agency.
Author: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 28 Aug 1860 |
Classmark: | The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/6: 164–71) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2900A |
To W. B. Tegetmeier 19 November [1856]
Summary
Emma’s illness prevents his attending Philoperisteron [pigeon fanciers’ club].
Expects larger collection of skins from West Africa.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | William Bernhard Tegetmeier |
Date: | 19 Nov [1856] |
Classmark: | Archives of the New York Botanical Garden (Charles Finney Cox Collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1992 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … their arrival. See letter from W. F. Daniell, 14 November 1856 . Tegetmeier ed. 1856–7. …
- … in letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 3 November [1856] . See letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, …
- … confinement and to the letter from W. F. Daniell, 14 November 1856 . The paper has not …
- … 1856–7): 284). Harrison Weir was a pigeon fancier and painter of animals. He did the illustrations for Tegetmeier’s edition of the Poultry book (see n. 6, below). CD asked Tegetmeier for this information again in letter …
To E. W. V. Harcourt 12 June [1856]
Summary
Would like to compare the length of the wings of non-migratory and migratory swallows.
Wonders if EWVH could show him skins of Columba livia.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Edward William Vernon Harcourt |
Date: | 12 June [1856] |
Classmark: | Bodleian Libraries, Oxford (MS. Harcourt dep. adds. 346, fols. 252–4) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1900F |
Matches: 4 hits
- … Harcourt’s reply to CD’s letter of 1 June [1856] (this volume, Supplement) has not been …
- … to the Insecta ( Wollaston 1856 ; see Correspondence vol. 6, letter to T. V. Wollaston, 6 …
- … 8. John Gould . See Wollaston 1856 , p. 102. CD’s letter to Nathaniel Haslope Mason , who …
- … Correspondence vol. 6, letter from E. W. V. Harcourt, 31 May 1856 . CD had recently read …
To J. D. Hooker 14 [November 1857]
Summary
Rule that species vary most in larger genera seems universal.
Response to Gardeners’ Chronicle note on "Bees and kidney beans" [Collected papers 1: 275–7].
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
Date: | 14 [Nov 1857] |
Classmark: | DAR 114: 215 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2170 |
From Edward Blyth 26 February 1856
Summary
There is a possibility of establishment of a Government Museum at Calcutta, with which the Asiatic Society Museum would be merged. EB would like the curatorship but fears other possible applicants. Asks CD to represent him to W. H. Sykes.
Discusses the ancients’ awareness of various cats as deduced from the etymology of their names.
Author: | Edward Blyth |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 26 Feb 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 98: A126–A127 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1833 |
From Thomas Vernon Wollaston [16 September 1860]
Summary
Has received a batch of S. African specimens which contain many of the Atlantic genera he found in Madeira and the Canaries.
Author: | Thomas Vernon Wollaston |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | [16 Sept 1860] |
Classmark: | DAR 205.3: 302 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2919 |
To Laurence Edmondston 19 April [1857]
Summary
Thanks for pigeon.
Are there Shetland birds chequered with black marks, as Carl Julian Graba states are in Faeroes [Reise nach Färö (1830)] and Col. King in the Hebrides?
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Laurence Edmondston |
Date: | 19 Apr [1857] |
Classmark: | L. D. Edmondston (private collection) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2079 |
Matches: 3 hits
letter | (684) |
people | (4) |
bibliography | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (455) |
Hooker, J. D. | (40) |
Gray, Asa | (12) |
Blyth, Edward | (10) |
Lyell, Charles | (9) |
Darwin, C. R. | (215) |
Hooker, J. D. | (97) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (49) |
Lyell, Charles | (31) |
Gray, Asa | (25) |
Darwin, C. R. | (670) |
Hooker, J. D. | (137) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (53) |
Lyell, Charles | (40) |
Gray, Asa | (37) |
1822 | (1) |
1836 | (1) |
1844 | (1) |
1848 | (1) |
1852 | (1) |
1853 | (4) |
1855 | (35) |
1856 | (227) |
1857 | (65) |
1858 | (56) |
1859 | (32) |
1860 | (46) |
1861 | (34) |
1862 | (18) |
1863 | (16) |
1864 | (16) |
1865 | (26) |
1866 | (26) |
1867 | (17) |
1868 | (18) |
1869 | (1) |
1870 | (3) |
1871 | (4) |
1872 | (5) |
1873 | (2) |
1874 | (6) |
1875 | (4) |
1876 | (2) |
1877 | (3) |
1878 | (4) |
1879 | (4) |
1881 | (5) |

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 …