To Charles Lyell 8 [May 1860]
Summary
Did not know about separation between Silurian and Cambrian.
Cannot attend Geological Society meeting.
Etty [Henrietta Darwin] ill.
Sedgwick in his attack at Cambridge Philosophical Society states "there must be [on CD’s theory] large genera not varying".
Discusses migration of plants and animals from Old World to New.
Views of Asa Gray on Aster.
Mentions flora of coal period.
Has been elected to Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Charles Lyell, 1st baronet |
Date: | 8 [May 1860] |
Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.211) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2788 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … 25 June [1856] , and letters from Charles Lyell , 17 …
- … 1856. See Correspondence vol. 6, especially letters to Charles Lyell , 16 [June 1856] and …
- … 1856] . CD was drafting chapters on pigeons that were eventually published in Variation (see ‘Journal’; Appendix II). CD had been elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (see letter …
To Alfred Russel Wallace 1 May 1857
Summary
Reports long preparation of work on how species and varieties differ. Agreement with Wallace’s conclusions as reported in Annals and Magazine of Natural History and in his letter to CD of 10 0ct [1856]. On distinction between domestic varieties and those in "a state of nature".
On mating of jaguars and leopards, the breeding of poultry, pigeons, etc.
Requests help for his experimenting on means of distribution of organic beings on oceanic islands.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
Date: | 1 May 1857 |
Classmark: | The British Library (Add MS 46434) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2086 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … as he states in the letter. Wallace’s letter of 10 October 1856 has not been found. …
- … Natural History and in his letter to CD of 10 0ct [1856]. On distinction between domestic …
- … been preserved, but see letter to W. B. Tegetmeier, 29 November [1856] and n. 4. Wallace …
- … 1856 to request specimens of domestic and wild fowl from Malaysia (see Correspondence vol. 5, CD memorandum, [December 1855]). James Brooke , raja of Saráwak, Borneo (see letter …
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 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 …
- … completed 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 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: | Kinnordy MS, Charles Lyell’s journal IV, pp. 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 …
From Fritz Müller 21 January 1879
Summary
Has lately found frog that has eggs on its back.
Pupae of caddis-flies living on rocks have lost fringe of hairs on their feet. In species that live in the water these are used for swimming.
Author: | Johann Friedrich Theodor (Fritz) Müller |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 21 Jan 1879 |
Classmark: | Nature, 20 March 1879, pp. 463–4 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11839 |
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
From H. C. Watson 20 June 1856
Summary
Conveys [? J. T. I. Boswell-]Syme’s opinion of variability of agrarian weeds and ranges of species common to U. S. and W. Europe. The Hispano-Hibernian connection.
Author: | Hewett Cottrell Watson |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 20 June 1856 |
Classmark: | DAR 181: 34 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1907 |
letter | (666) |
people | (3) |
bibliography | (2) |
Darwin, C. R. | (443) |
Hooker, J. D. | (39) |
Gray, Asa | (12) |
Blyth, Edward | (10) |
Lyell, Charles | (9) |
Darwin, C. R. | (210) |
Hooker, J. D. | (96) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (49) |
Lyell, Charles | (31) |
Gray, Asa | (25) |
Darwin, C. R. | (653) |
Hooker, J. D. | (135) |
Tegetmeier, W. B. | (53) |
Lyell, Charles | (40) |
Gray, Asa | (37) |

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Correlation of growth: deaf blue-eyed cats, pigs, and poison
Summary
As he was first developing his ideas, among the potential problems Darwin recognised with natural selection was how to account for developmental change that conferred no apparent advantage. He proposed a ‘mysterious law’ of ‘correlation of growth’ where…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin made many changes to the text of Origin across different editions as he …

Darwin in letters, 1865: Delays and disappointments
Summary
The year was marked by three deaths of personal significance to Darwin: Hugh Falconer, a friend and supporter; Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle; and William Jackson Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and father of Darwin’s friend…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In 1865, the chief work on Charles Darwin’s mind was the writing of The variation of animals and …

The writing of "Origin"
Summary
From a quiet rural existence at Down in Kent, filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on the transmutation of species, Darwin was jolted into action in 1858 by the arrival of an unexpected letter (no longer extant) from Alfred Russel Wallace outlining a…
Matches: 1 hits
- … When I was in spirits I sometimes fancied that my book w d be successful; but I never even …