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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
News of his activities in recent months, of mutual Edinburgh acquaintances, and the Plinian Society.
JC has given up natural history for a time to prepare himself better for medical practice.
Writes about London plays; wishes CD had been of the party.
Erasmus Alvey Darwin has rheumatism; his sisters complain of his bad temper but CD thinks him very good tempered. CD has received a new cabinet. [This is the first of six entries written in a "Memorandum book" comprising four sheets folded into a gather and sewn together in book form. The entries are in the style of letters addressed to an unnamed friend and are dated between 1 and 12 January 1822, shortly before CD’s thirteenth birthday. As they were written straight into the memorandum book, it is clear that they were never sent through the post, but were either to an imaginary recipient, or intended to be read by someone in the household, possibly CD’s youngest sister, Emily Catherine Darwin (Catherine).]
Erasmus Alvey Darwin is good tempered and their sisters have "not abused at all". Hopes the recipient will help "in looking out and washing the fossils out of the plate closet".
"Monseur Beodoes" is inquisitive and impertinent; Mr Bayly "was formerly a devlish boor". Asks who his sisters have been talking about.
Likes Mariane who is very good to Miss Jones; CD bought cakes in town while Mariane visited Miss Jones; he was embarrassed to be shown into her bedroom when he returned. Miss Clare has had an accident.
Caroline disapproves of his not washing.
Was joined by Colonel Burgh Leighton when walking in the quarry. Plans to make caves next summer to store "warlike instruments" and "relicks". Sketches a design for a signalling device. May go with his father to visit the Earl of Powys at Walcot; visited Mrs and Miss Reynolds and William Pemberton Cludde.
First days in Edinburgh.
CD comments on lectures and lecturers at Edinburgh.
Sends thanks to all for their letters.
News of dining and theatre at Edinburgh.
CD will learn to stuff birds from "a blackamoor".
CD is studying the Bible, likes the gospels best.
Glad he stayed for T. C. Hope’s lectures on electricity.
Is running short of funds.
[Caroline Darwin on behalf of CD] submits a petition to Darwin family for £20 to purchase a new double-barrelled gun, CD’s present one having become dangerous.
Has found nice rooms in [Christ’s] College, which he has furnished with some very good prints. Lives almost entirely with W. D. Fox and entomology.
News of John Price, B. H. Kennedy, and Charles Whitley. Fanny Owen is as charming as ever.
A ball and two concerts at Shrewsbury; guests at the Darwins’: Mr and Mrs Mathew, three Mr Clives, Emma Wedgwood.
Theatre at Shrewsbury.
Spark’s death.
Harry [Henry Allen] Wedgwood will make the circuit for the first time at the forthcoming assizes.
Tells of gay times with guests.
Writes, while visiting the Wedgwoods at Maer and Parkfields, to thank CD for his "entertaining letter".
She misses him and the laboratory.
Asks "how Mineralogy, Botany, Chemistry and Entomology go on".
Shrewsbury news.
Glad he likes Edinburgh.
They have been going to plays performed by a travelling company he knows.
Family news.