News of family and friends. "I tell you all the gossip I can that you may know how the Shropshire world is going on."

Finds CD’s journal very entertaining and interesting, but thinks his style in first part too much influenced by Humboldt.

Sends some books by Harriet Martineau and Archbishop Whately.

Rejoices that the more he sees of Negroes, the better he thinks of them.

News of family and friends. Hensleigh Wedgwood’s scruples about swearing oaths.

They learn from a garbled report in the Times that CD’s specimens have arrived in Cambridge.

William Clift, at Royal College of Surgeons, delighted by CD’s letter about the bones that were sent to Plymouth.

Strange coincidence that Royal College of Surgeons has the front portion and CD has sent home the remainder of a skull, of which a drawing can now be completed.

Other news of family and friends.

News of family and friends.

Word that William Clift thinks CD’s latest fossils are of much value.

Has sent all of CD’s directions to William Clift.

Erasmus has been very ill, but is now quite safe and well again. Caroline and Susan are with him.

They have heard FitzRoy is promoted and the Beagle is coming home.

Urges him to return home. News of family and friends; the Langtons will go to Rio in April and then winter in the West Indies. Henslow has a son.

CD’s fame is spreading: she quotes Henslow ["Letters to Professor Henslow" (1835), Collected papers 1: 3–16], and a passage in the Athenæum.

Adds news of family and friends.

News of friends and family.

Interested in Lyell’s address [Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1833–8): 479–523]. Asks what the points are on which CD and Lyell are fully agreed.

Inquires about the paper FitzRoy and CD wrote on missionaries ["Moral state of Tahiti" (1836), Collected papers 1: 19–38].

News of family.

News of family and friends, much of it about forthcoming marriages: Fanny Owen and R. M. Biddulph, Fanny Mackintosh and Hensleigh Wedgwood. Charlotte Wedgwood will write to him of her own engagement to Charles Langton.

Writes chiefly of family affairs: Erasmus’ visit, further delay in Fanny Owen’s marriage, Sarah [Owen] Williams’ illness, Arthur Owen’s sad departure for India; cholera.

Tells of the family’s pleasure in reading CD’s first two letters and his journal.

Comments on Shrewsbury politics, the cholera, and the family. Sedgwick calls often; Catherine thinks he is interested in Susan.

Writes news of family, Maer, and Woodhouse. His father has sent for a banana tree

and plans to buy J. J. Audubon’s book [Birds of America (1827)].

Charles Langton has been given a living near Ludlow.

She and Susan are in London, and she writes of people they have seen or had news of: Captain Harding, E. A. Darwin, Fanny [Mrs Hensleigh] Wedgwood, Emma Wedgwood, the Langtons, Josiah Wedgwood and Aunt Bessie, Fanny Biddulph and child, and the Evanses of Portrane.

Mainly Shropshire news of family and friends.

Finds his journal interesting; they will read it aloud to Papa on winter evenings. They all regret the long time the journey is taking.

Mentions letters sent in parcel and those from CD received by Fox and Henslow. Adds news of family and friends.

Appreciation of his journal. She hears that CD’s "theory of the Earth" is the same as Lyell’s in 3d volume [of Principles of geology (1833)].

News of family and friends: W. D. Fox will marry in the spring; private theatricals at Eaton house-party.

Family and local news. Tom Eyton will marry. Tells of the great fire of the Houses of Parliament.