From J. C. Conybeare 17 December 1877
Summary
JCC and his young daughter have observed that blossoms of Drosera rotundifolia open in afternoon, which contradicts Forms of flowers.
| Author: | John Charles Conybeare |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 17 Dec 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 161: 222 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11282 |
From Otto Zacharias 23 February 1877
Summary
Was CD already convinced of evolution when he published Journal of researches?
Photograph album will be late coming.
Evolutionary magazine to appear in March under title of Kosmos.
| Author: | Otto Zacharias |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 23 Feb 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 184: 5 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10862 |
To Asa Gray 3 January 1877
Summary
Asks AG not to send his rare specimens [of Leucosmia].
Is glad of the notice about black pigs.
Has great faith in Jeffries Wyman;
thinks A. R. Wallace founds his speculation on a feeble basis.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 3 Jan 1877 |
| Classmark: | Gray Herbarium of Harvard University (118) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10768 |
From Theodor von Heldreich 2 August 1877
Summary
Sends paper on Greek plants.
| Author: | Theodor Heinrich Hermann (Theodor) von Heldreich |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 2 Aug 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 135 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11091 |
From G. J. Romanes 16 June [1877]
Summary
Galton agrees with GJR about rudimentary organs.
GJR’s note referred to possibility of selection acting on organic types as distinguished from individuals.
Thinks Grant Allen has not made out his point [in Physiological aesthetics (1877)], but his fundamental principle probably has much truth.
| Author: | George John Romanes |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 16 June [1877] |
| Classmark: | E. D. Romanes 1896, p. 55 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11004 |
From A. A. van Bemmelen and H. J. Veth 6 February 1877
Summary
A letter from CD’s admirers in the Netherlands, sent with an album of their photographs, in celebration of his sixty-eighth birthday.
Presents an account of early efforts in the Netherlands in the direction of developmental theories, and evidence of the support and enthusiastic reception given CD’s theory.
| Author: | Adriaan Anthoni van Bemmelen; Huibert Johannes Veth |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 Feb 1877 |
| Classmark: | English Heritage, Down House (EH 88202653) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10831 |
From George Hodgskin 6 January 1877
Summary
Sends nest of a Uruguayan bird.
| Author: | George Hodgskin |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 6 Jan 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 166: 225 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10773 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … letter from Arthur Mellersh, 1 January 1877 . CD’s reply to Mellersh of 3 January 1877 has not been found. Hodgskin had lived in Montevideo for many years before returning to Britain. Señor Rodó has not been identified. CD had visited Montevideo on the Beagle voyage (see Journal of researches (1860) , …
From John Scott 12 April 1877
Summary
Comments on various species of Lagerstroemia.
In the series of opium poppy intercrosses made at CD’s suggestion, JS has learned that the reason they failed to intercross was the absence of insects at the period of their flowering.
| Author: | John Scott |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 12 Apr 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 47: 207–9 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10928 |
From C. F. Martins 7 June 1877
Summary
All young intelligent French naturalists support CD. But the professors are afraid of being called materialists, atheists, or communists.
A paper of his ["Sur l’origine paléontologique", C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. 84 (1877): 534–7] met with silence, except from Bureau. If only France had become Protestant!
| Author: | Charles Frédéric Martins |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 7 June 1877 |
| Classmark: | DAR 171: 63 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10990 |
To J. D. Hooker 25 May [1877]
Summary
CD has again become interested in "bloom" on plants; requests JDH’s help with seeds and plants.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 25 May [1877] |
| Classmark: | DAR 95: 440–1; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Darwin: Letters to Thiselton-Dyer, 1873–81: f. 69) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-10972 |
| letter | (10) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
| Bemmelen, A. A. van | (1) |
| Conybeare, J. C. | (1) |
| Heldreich, Theodor von | (1) |
| Hodgskin, George | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (8) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (10) |
| Bemmelen, A. A. van | (1) |
| Conybeare, J. C. | (1) |
| Gray, Asa | (1) |
| Heldreich, Theodor von | (1) |
Darwin in letters, 1860: Answering critics
Summary
On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species, printing off another 3000 copies to satisfy the demands of an audience that surprised both the publisher and the author. It wasn't long, however, before ‘the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 7 January 1860, John Murray published the second edition of Darwin’s Origin of species , …
British Association meeting 1860
Summary
Several letters refer to events at the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Oxford, 26 June – 3 July 1860. Darwin had planned to attend the meeting but in the end was unable to. The most famous incident of the meeting was the verbal…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Oxford, June–July 1860 …
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 …
New material added to the American edition of Origin
Summary
A ‘revised and augmented’ American edition of Origin came on the market in July 1860, and was the only authorised edition available in the US until 1873. It incorporated many of the changes Darwin made to the second English edition, but still contained…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The ‘historical sketch’ printed as a preface to the American edition ( Origin US ed., pp …
Natural Selection: the trouble with terminology Part I
Summary
Darwin encountered problems with the term ‘natural selection’ even before Origin appeared. Everyone from the Harvard botanist Asa Gray to his own publisher came up with objections. Broadly these divided into concerns either that its meaning simply wasn’t…
Matches: 1 hits
- … I suppose “natural selection” was bad term but to change it now, I think, would make confusion …
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 …
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 …
Rewriting Origin - the later editions
Summary
For such an iconic work, the text of Origin was far from static. It was a living thing that Darwin continued to shape for the rest of his life, refining his ‘one long argument’ through a further five English editions. Many of his changes were made in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … If I lived 20 more years, & was able to work, how I sh d . have to modify the “Origin”, & …
Religion
Summary
Design|Personal Belief|Beauty|The Church Perhaps the most notorious realm of controversy over evolution in Darwin's day was religion. The same can be said of the evolution controversy today; however the nature of the disputes and the manner in…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Design | Personal Belief | Beauty | The Church Perhaps the most notorious …
The Lyell–Lubbock dispute
Summary
In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book Prehistoric times, accused Lyell of plagiarism. The dispute caused great dismay among many of their mutual scientific friends, some of whom took immediate action…
Matches: 1 hits
- … In May 1865 a dispute arose between John Lubbock and Charles Lyell when Lubbock, in his book …
From morphology to movement: observation and experiment
Summary
Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, as exemplified by his observations on geology, or a microscopic one, as shown by his early work on the eggs and larvae of tiny bryozoans, Darwin was…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, …
Evolution: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1860-1870
Summary
This selection of Charles Darwin’s letters includes correspondence with his friends and scientific colleagues around the world; letters by the critics who tried to stamp out his ideas, and by admirers who helped them to spread. It takes up the story of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … This selection of Charles Darwin’s letters includes correspondence with his friends and scientific …
Syms Covington
Summary
When Charles Darwin embarked on the Beagle voyage in 1831, Syms Covington was ‘fiddler & boy to Poop-cabin’. Covington kept an illustrated journal of his observations and experiences on the voyage, noting wildlife, landscapes, buildings and people and,…
Matches: 1 hits
- … When Charles Darwin embarked on the Beagle voyage in 1831, Syms Covington was ‘ fiddler & boy …
Referencing women’s work
Summary
Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but whether and how they were acknowledged in print involved complex considerations of social standing, professional standing, and personal preference.…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin's correspondence shows that women made significant contributions to Darwin's work, but …
Natural Science and Femininity
Summary
Discussion Questions|Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine thoughts, habits and feelings, male naturalists like Darwin inhabited an uncertain gendered identity. Working from the private domestic comfort of their homes and exercising…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Discussion Questions | Letters A conflation of masculine intellect and feminine …
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 …
Darwin in letters, 1861: Gaining allies
Summary
The year 1861 marked an important change in the direction of Darwin’s work. He had weathered the storm that followed the publication of Origin, and felt cautiously optimistic about the ultimate acceptance of his ideas. The letters from this year provide an…
Matches: 1 hits
- … The year 1861 marked an important change in the direction of Darwin’s work. By then, he had …
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 …
Darwin’s Photographic Portraits
Summary
Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the study of Expression and Emotions in Man and Animal, but can be witnessed in his many photographic portraits and in the extensive portrait correspondence that…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Darwin was a photography enthusiast. This is evident not only in his use of photography for the …
Insectivorous Plants
Summary
Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work with insectivorous plants in the mid 1860s, though his findings would not be published until 1875. In his autobiography Darwin reflected on the delay that…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Sources | Discussion Questions | Experiment Plants that consume insects …
