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From M. C. Stanley   19 September 1877

Knowsley, | Prescot.

19 Sept/77

Dear Mr Darwin

Count Schouvaloff has been asserting today that your works are still prohibited in Russia. I told him your story as you told it to me, but he thinks I have made a mistake.1 If you would not mind dictating a letter to me stating what you believe to be true, I shd. be much interested to be able to tell him that he was mistaken.2

Still if you prefer to let the matter alone take no notice of my request.

Yr very sincerely | M C Derby

1
Peter Andreivich Shuválov (or Schouvaloff), Russian ambassador to London, frequently visited Stanley and her husband, Lord Derby (Edward Henry Stanley). Derby, the foreign secretary, was resisting pressure from Queen Victoria and the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, for British military intervention against Russia in the war with the Ottoman Empire. For the Stanleys’ involvement in this episode and their relationship with Shuválov, see Grosvenor 2011 and Otte 2011. Popularisations of CD’s theories had been banned in Russia, but his works were widely read (Choldin 1985, p. 85), and CD was aware of his popularity. See also Correspondence vol. 15, letter to Charles Lyell, 22 August [1867] and n. 8).
2
No reply from CD has been found.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11146,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11146