Ɛpsilon

To L. A. Errera   5 March 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

March 5— 1879

Dear Sir

I have just returned home after a week’s absence, & found your & M. Gevaert’s kind present lying here.1 Before long I will find time to read it, & feel sure that it will interest me greatly.

From our former correspondence I am well convinced that I shall find very much more in your book & papers than a “vulgarisation” or popularisation of the subject, as you have modestly described your work in the kind words written on the Title-page.—2

Pray accept my thanks & believe me Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

1
CD visited London from 27 February until 5 March 1879 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). Errera sent an offprint of his and Gustave Gevaert’s work on flower morphology and fertilisation (Errera and Gevaert 1878). The work first appeared in the Bulletin de la Société royale de botanique de Belgique in 1878; the offprint was published in 1879.
2
CD’s offprint of Errera and Gevaert 1878 has not been found, but a copy with the title page inscribed to Francis Darwin from Errera is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11916,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11916