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.

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 unusually detailed and intimate understanding of Darwin’s problem-solving method of work. The beginning of the American Civil War and the possibility of British involvement brings an unusally political flavour to the correspondence with tensions increasingly evident between two of his closest friends and supporters, Joseph Hooker and the American Asa Gray. 

At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of  Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the remainder of the year was spent researching and revising chapters for  Descent, and gathering additional material on emotional expression. Yet the scope of Darwin’s interests remained extremely broad, many letters throughout the year touching on subjects such as South American geology, barnacle morphology, insectivorous plants, and earthworms, subjects that had exercised Darwin for decades.

The year 1866 began well for Charles Darwin, as his health, after several years of illness, was now considerably improved. In February, Darwin received a request from his publisher, John Murray, for a new edition of  Origin. Darwin got the fourth edition to the printers in July. Much to Darwin’s annoyance, however, publication was delayed by Murray, who judged that it would sell better if released later in the year. Darwin also completed the major part of what was to become Variation. Debate about Darwin’s theory of transmutation continued in 1866, with important commentaries appearing in France, Germany, and Italy.

One of the real pleasures afforded in reading Charles Darwin’s correspondence is the discovery of areas of research on which he never published, but which interested him deeply. We can gain many insights about Darwin’s research methods by following these ‘letter trails’ and observing how correspondence served as a vital research tool for him.

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 stones began to fly’. Members of the scientific community found many difficulties in Origin in the year after its publication and Darwin despaired of making his ideas understood. Among these problems was that arising from the implications it had for human ancestry, hotly debated at the famous meeting of the British Association in Oxford that summer.

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. This letter led to the first announcement of Darwin’s and Wallace’s respective theories of organic change at the Linnean Society of London in July 1858 and prompted the composition and publication, in November 1859, of Darwin’s major treatise On the origin of species by means of natural selection. By the end of 1859, Darwin’s work was being discussed in publications as diverse as The Times and the English Churchman, and Darwin himself was busy as never before: answering letters, justifying and explaining his views to friends, relations, and ‘bitter opponents’. The correspondence shows vividly just how distressed Darwin was during the days leading up to the Linnean meeting. On 18 June 1858, his eldest daughter, Henrietta Emma,  was stricken with diphtheria, then a little-known and frightening illness. Several days later, their 18-month-old baby, Charles Waring, came down with scarlet fever. His condition deteriorated rapidly in the space of a few days and the Darwins were shocked by his unexpected death on 28 June.