From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Asa Gray
Date:
21 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (16)
Summary:
Would welcome American edition of Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
21 [Dec 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 28
Summary:
Delighted JDH coming to Down. They will discuss Origin. JDH’s remarks that theory explains too much are excellent, yet CD cannot see his error.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Date:
22 [Dec 1859]
Source of text:
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.186)
Summary:
Comments on Hooker’s introductory essay [in Flora Tasmaniae].
Cites C. V. Naudin’s article ["Considérations philosophiques sur l’espèce et la variété", Rev. Hortic. 4th ser. 1 (1852): 102–9].
Mentions letter from William Jardine criticising discussion of the Galapagos in the Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Murray
Date:
22 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms.42152 ff.68–69)
Summary:
Asa Gray offers to arrange for reprinting Origin in U. S. CD has told him JM would send sheets of 2d ed. by post.
CD thinks he has good scheme for his "larger work" in three volumes, with separate titles and a general title. Will be two years before first volume is ready because of his health.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Thomas Balmain
To:
Ferdinand von Mueller
Date:
22 December 1859
Source of text:
No. 59/4220, unit 4, p. 385, VPRS 975/P2 outward registered correspondence, VA 669 Department of Public Works, Public Record Office, Victoria
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller Project
Text Online
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
23 December 1859
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library: DAR 115: 32
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
23 [Dec 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 32
Summary:
Received JDH’s introduction to Flora Tasmaniae.
Criticism of C. V. Naudin’s descent theory.
Asks that Lyell be allowed to see letter.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Leonard Horner
Date:
23 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
DAR 145: 140
Summary:
Much pleased that LH approves of Origin.
"Ilkley [Wells] did me extraordinary good."
Wants to know C. J. F. Bunbury’s opinion of Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
James Walker
To:
Michael Faraday
Date:
23 December 1859
Source of text:
RI MS Conybeare Album, f.41
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Faraday Project
Text Online
From:
Peter Henry Berthon
To:
Michael Faraday
Date:
23 December 1859
Source of text:
GL MS 30108/3/102
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Faraday Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Asa Gray
Date:
24 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (46)
Summary:
Thanks for AG’s Japan memoir [Mem. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 6 (1857–9): 377–452]. Does not think AG’s arguments for a warm post-glacial period are sufficient, but will not be sorry to be proved wrong.
Believes natural selection explains many classes of facts which repeated creation does not.
Writes of some responses to the Origin.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
24 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Private collection
Summary:
Sends MS on pigeons for THH’s lecture at Royal Institution.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
John Tyndall
To:
Sarah Faraday
Date:
24 December 1859
Source of text:
RI MS JT TS Volume 12, pp.4093-5
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Faraday Project
From:
John Tyndall
To:
Sarah Faraday
Date:
Christmas eve, 1859
Source of text:
MS JT/1/TYP/12/4093; 5:3699, RI; Faraday Correspondence
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Tyndall Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Murray
Date:
24 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms.42153 ff.24–25)
Summary:
Thanks JM for present of McClintock’s work [Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, The voyage of the "Fox" in the Arctic seas (1859)], which he and his wife look forward to reading.
Asks to be told when reprint [of Origin] is ready.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
François Jules Pictet de la Rive
Date:
24 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Bibliothèque de Genève (MS. fr. 1651, ff. 6–7)
Summary:
Sends Origin to FJP. "I rest my conviction solely on the fact, as it seems to me, that the theory explains large classes of facts otherwise inexplicable." Has made important converts: Lyell, Hooker, Huxley, and W. B. Carpenter.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
William Darwin Fox
Date:
25 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Christ’s College Library, Cambridge (MS 53 Fox 125)
Summary:
His poor health keeps him from work.
His book [Origin] is a success "in the ordinary sense" – has had to reprint another 3000 copies.
Will now begin his "bigger book" which he plans to publish in three separate volumes with distinct titles and also a general title.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
25 [Dec 1859]
Source of text:
DAR 115: 31
Summary:
CD will not write to L. Descaisne to defend his priority over C. V. Naudin.
Feels success of theory depends on acceptance and application by good and well-known workers, like JDH, Huxley, and Lyell.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
25 Dec [1859]
Source of text:
Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine Archives (Huxley 5: 90)
Summary:
Henry Holland and others have attacked his reasoning from analogy to one primordial created form – by which CD means only that we know nothing of how life originated. The reasoning seems probable to him, so he has kept it in.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
John Higgins
Date:
26 Dec 1859
Source of text:
Lincolnshire Archives (HIG/4/2/3/2)
Summary:
Discusses purchase of additional land.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project