To F. T. Buckland 2 October 1866
Summary
Declines contributing to Land and Water. Asks if F. T. Buckland can insert a question about the feet of otter hounds.
Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Addressee: | Buckland, F. T. |
Date: | 02 Oct 1866 |
Classmark: | Rendells |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5227F |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Rendells Charles Robert Darwin 02 Oct 1866 Buckland, F. T. …
From Francis Darwin to Thomas Edison [20–9 December 1877]
Summary
His father asks him to thank TAE for sending the curious case of the insects [see 11271].
Author: | Francis Darwin |
Addressee: | Thomas Alva Edison |
Date: | [20–9 Dec 1877] |
Classmark: | Thomas Edison National Park (Edison Document File, 1878 Folder: (D-78-02) Edison, T.A. – General) |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-11312A |
Matches: 1 hit
- … Edison Document File, 1878 Folder: (D-78-02) Edison, T.A. – General) Francis Darwin Down [ …
From Asa Gray 4 August 1862
Summary
Gives J. T. Rothrock’s observations on the structure and fertility of the two forms of Houstonia. Mentions his own observations on Rhexia virginica and Gymnadenia tridentata.
Author: | Asa Gray |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 4 Aug 1862 |
Classmark: | DAR 110 (ser. 2): 67–9 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-3679 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … pollen .020. x .017 Short-styled " .036 x .02 : in the fresh plants, but dry. Distended …
From T. L. Brunton 28 February 1874
Summary
Reports negative results of his experiments on digestion of chlorophyll by Drosera and by animals. [See Insectivorous plants, p. 126.]
Sends references for chondrin.
Author: | Thomas Lauder Brunton, 1st baronet |
Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
Date: | 28 Feb 1874 |
Classmark: | DAR 58.1: 47–8, DAR 160: 340 |
Letter no: | DCP-LETT-9322 |
Matches: 1 hit
- … and water 2 ........... dogs stomach with dilute HCl .02% 3 ........... glycerine & water …
Brunton, T. L. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (1) |
Darwin, Francis | (1) |
Gray, Asa | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (2) |
Buckland, F. T. | (1) |
Edison, T. A. | (1) |
Darwin, C. R. | (3) |
Brunton, T. L. | (1) |
Buckland, F. T. | (1) |
Darwin, Francis | (1) |
Edison, T. A. | (1) |

Darwin and religion: a definitive web resource
Summary
I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and how it arose. Charles Darwin to N. D. Doedes, 2 April 1873 Darwin is more famous, and more notorious than ever. Nowhere is this more evident than in the…
Matches: 1 hits
- … arose. Charles Darwin to N. D. Doedes, 2 April 1873 Darwin is more …

Survival of the fittest: the trouble with terminology Part II
Summary
The most forceful and persistent critic of the term ‘natural selection’ was the co-discoverer of the process itself, Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace seized on Herbert Spencer’s term ‘survival of the fittest’, explicitly introduced as an alternative way of…
Matches: 4 hits
- … ones. ( Alfred Russel Wallace to Charles Darwin, 2 July 1866 ) …
- … Principles of biology (Spencer 1864–7, 1: 444–5, 2: 48, et passim ). Wallace was so taken with …
- … (the copy is now in Cambridge University Library, Keynes.M.2.27). Shorthand for the survival and …
- … of the fittest in the last paragraph of Variation (2: 432), but although he altered the chapter …

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: 3 hits

Books on the Beagle
Summary
The Beagle was a sort of floating library. Find out what Darwin and his shipmates read here.
Matches: 10 hits
- … places’. So wrote Captain FitzRoy in the Narrative (2: 18). CD, in his letter to Henslow, 9 …
- … in notes made during 1833 cite secondary sources (DAR 33: 254 and DAR 30.2: 112) but several later …
- … during the summer of 1836 (Sulloway 1982b, pp. 331–2, n. 13). Finally, there are two works that CD …
- … de Voisins, Jean Franc~ois d’. Traité de géognosie . 2 vols. Strasbourg, 1819. (Inscription in …
- … 1835). * Boitard, Pierre. Manuel d’entomologie. 2 vols. Paris, 1828. (Inscription in vol. 2 …
- … Forster. London, 1772. ( Voyage , p. 178; DAR 34.2: 153). § British Association for …
- … travaux de M. Gay. Annales des Sciences Naturelles 28 (1833): 26–35. (DAR 35.2: 396). …
- … With Notes . . . by Robert Jameson. London, 1813. (DAR 30.2: 154). Darwin Library–CUL. …
- … John. Travels in the interior of Southern Africa . 2 vols. London, 1822–4. ( Voyage , p. 182; …
- … Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, in the years 1824–25 . London, 1826. (DAR 31.2: 333; Stoddart …

German poems presented to Darwin
Summary
Experiments in deepest reverence The following poems were enclosed with a photograph album sent as a birthday gift to Charles Darwin by his German and Austrian admirers (see letter from From Emil Rade, [before 16] February 1877). The poems were…

Capturing Darwin’s voice: audio of selected letters
Summary
On a sunny Wednesday in June 2011 in a makeshift recording studio somewhere in Cambridge, we were very pleased to welcome Terry Molloy back to the Darwin Correspondence Project for a special recording session. Terry, known for his portrayal of Davros in Dr…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to help him with his research (e.g. to Lydia Becker, 2 August 1863 ; to Mary Treat, 5 January …
Darwin's works in letters
Summary
Another present for Darwin's birthday: five new pages are added to our Works in letters section on the 'big book' before Origin, Origin itself, the subsequent editions of Origin, Orchids, and the Life of Erasmus Darwin. These complement…
Matches: 1 hits
- … obtain for my works. ( letter to Ernst Dieffenbach, 2 October 1843 ) Darwin …

Darwin’s queries on expression
Summary
When Darwin resumed systematic research on emotions around 1866, he began to collect observations more widely and composed a list of queries on human expression. A number of handwritten copies were sent out in 1867 (see, for example, letter to Fritz Muller…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Haast, J.F.J. von 12 May - 2 June 1867 Christchurch, …

Darwin in letters, 1874: A turbulent year
Summary
The year 1874 was one of consolidation, reflection, and turmoil for Darwin. He spent the early months working on second editions of Coral reefs and Descent of man; the rest of the year was mostly devoted to further research on insectivorous plants. A…
Matches: 1 hits
- … spirit séance’ at his home ( letter from T. G. Appleton, 2 April 1874 ). Back over old …

Editorial policy and practice
Summary
Full texts are added to this site four years after the letter is published in the print edition of the Correspondence. Transcriptions are made from the original or a facsimile where these are available. Where they are not, texts are taken from the best…
Matches: 1 hits
- … identification is followed by a question mark. 2. The date Darwin rarely gave the year …
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007

George Busk
Summary
After the Beagle voyage, Darwin’s collection of bryozoans disappears from the records until the material was sent, in 1852, for study by George Busk, one of the foremost workers on the group of his day. In 1863, on the way down to Malvern Wells, Darwin had…
Matches: 1 hits
- … by Charles and Lady Lyell ( letter from J. D. Hooker [2 June 1865] ). …

Origin: the lost changes for the second German edition
Summary
Darwin sent a list of changes made uniquely to the second German edition of Origin to its translator, Heinrich Georg Bronn. That lost list is recreated here.
Matches: 8 hits
- … Etienne Page xiv, n., lines 2–5, delete ‘It is curious . . . in 1794’. 2 …
- … modification of species. Page xix, par. 1, line 2, insert after ‘and clearness.’: 5 …
- … a single parent-form. Page xix, par. 4, line 2, insert after ‘1860’: 6 …
- … ruminants Page 18, par. 2, line 15, insert after ‘England’: 8 …
- … will be given in a future work. Page 46, par. 2, lines 22–4, substitute for ‘but then . . …
- … with the conqueror. By the way, Page 99, par. 2, line 26, to page 100, par. 1, line 5, …
- … in certain definite directions. Page 162, par. 2, lines 6–7, insert after ‘deafness in’: …
- … (p. 32) Page 182, par. 2, line 15, insert after ‘full-grown animal.’: 20 …

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: 3 hits

Henrietta Darwin's diary
Summary
Darwin's daughter Henrietta kept a diary for a few momentous weeks in 1871. This was the year in which Descent of Man, the most controversial of her father's books after Origin itself, appeared, a book which she had helped him write. The small…

Volume 27 (1879) now published
Summary
In 1879, Darwin continued his research on movement in plants and researched, wrote, and published a short biography of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin as an introduction to a translation of an essay by Ernst Krause on Erasmus’s scientific work. Darwin’s son…

Darwin in letters, 1875: Pulling strings
Summary
‘I am getting sick of insectivorous plants’, Darwin confessed in January 1875. He had worked on the subject intermittently since 1859, and had been steadily engaged on a book manuscript for nine months; January also saw the conclusion of a bitter dispute…
Matches: 8 hits
- … on some Marantaceous plant to make out meaning of 2 sets of differently coloured stamens.’ At …
- … and a mere mouthpiece of ‘Jesuitical Rome’ ( Academy , 2 January 1875, pp. 16–17). ‘How grandly …
- … sold some 1700 Copies!!!’ After the initial publication on 2 July, two further printings were needed …
- … you were born (letter from E. F. Lubbock, [after 2 July] 1875). Back over old …
- … on her sister. He had described the case in Variation 2: 14–16, suggesting that such regrowth …
- … the eyes of one variety into another ( Variation 2d ed. 1: 420–4, 2: 360). Darwin had encouraged …
- … at its sensitiveness. If you blow gently at it from 1 or 2 feet distance, it absorbs moisture & …
- … meeting: ‘I did so enjoy my afternoon’, she wrote on 2 July , ‘and if it were not too much to ask …
'An Appeal' against animal cruelty
Summary
The four-page pamphlet transcribed below and entitled 'An Appeal', was composed jointly by Emma and Charles Darwin (see letter from Emma Darwin to W. D. Fox, [29 September 1863]). The pamphlet, which protested against the cruelty of steel vermin…
Matches: 7 hits
- … pamphlet was published in the Gardeners’ Chronicle on 29 August 1863, pp. 821–2, under the title …
- … (see the letter from Emma Darwin to William Erasmus Darwin, [2 September 1863] (DAR 219.1: 77), and …
- … ( Spectator , 6 January 1877, p. 15, and Emma Darwin 2: 200–1). While Emma Darwin …
- … , pp. 44, 54–5, 78, and Correspondence vol. 2, letter to W. D. Fox, 28 August [1837]). Later he …
- … the publication of Origin (Turner 1980, pp. 60–2, 124–128, Worster 1985, pp. 179–80, 184–7). …
- … seen a trap, and therefore I give a wood-cut of one. 2 The iron teeth shut …
- … in nineteenth-century England, see Turner 1980. 2 This sentence, and the woodcut of the …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Matches: 7 hits
- … life , (London: John Murray, 1st ed., 1859), p. 88. 2) “There is one other point deserving a …
- … a more inventive genius…” Descent (1871), vol. 2, pp. 316 – 317. 4) “Difference in …
- … and less selfishness…” Descent (1871), vol. 2, pp. 326 – 327. 5) “The chief distinction …
- … use of the senses and hands….” Descent (1871), vol. 2, pp. 327. 6) “…Thus man has …
- … plumage to the peahen.” Descent (1871), vol. 2, pp. 328 – 329. 7) “In order that …
- … to her adult daughters….” Descent (1871), vol. 2, p. 329. 8) “Man is more powerful in …
- … gained the power of selection…” Descent (1871), vol. 2, pp. 371 – 372. Selected …

Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health
Summary
On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’. Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…