To Reginald Darwin   16 April 1879

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

Ap. 16th. 79

My dear Cousin

In looking through the piles of old letters I have come across 7 from your Father to mine; & I have thought that you would like to add them (especially one from Smyrna) to your collection in your big book when this is returned to you.—1

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
Reginald Darwin had lent CD Erasmus Darwin’s Commonplace book (Down House MS), to which he had added newspaper clippings relating to his side of the Darwin family (see letter to Reginald Darwin, 4 April 1879 and n. 8). The letters from Francis Sacherevel Darwin to his half-brother Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848) are not in the Commonplace book, but there is a note by Reginald Darwin recording that CD gave him the letters in 1879, and that they provided the main record of his father’s life between 1804 and 1818. Francis Sacherevel Darwin visited Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey) in 1809 and 1810 during a tour of the Mediterranean (F. S. Darwin 1927).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 Smyrna] ‘m’ over ‘y’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11997,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11997