Ɛpsilon

To E. A. Wheler   3 May 1879

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

May 3. 1879

My dear Cousin

I return with very sincere thanks all your various precious documents by Rail this day.—1 We leave home on the 6th & I hope then to make a beginning of my Preliminary notice of the life of Dr. D.2

Believe me Yours truly obliged | Charles Darwin

P.S I have retained the letter from Mrs Nixon3

1
Wheler had sent CD anecdotes concerning Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), as well as a copy of a letter sent by her sister Emma Sophia Galton in 1871 to John Dowson about his lecture on the life of Erasmus Darwin (Dowson 1861); Wheler also sent a copy of Erasmus Darwin’s translations of the medical works of his son Charles, loaned by Emma Sophia Galton (see letter to E. A. Wheler, 26 March 1879, and letter from E. A. Wheler, 28 March 1879).
2
CD was on holiday from 6 to 26 May 1879 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). He intended to start writing the biographical account of Erasmus Darwin that would serve as a preliminary notice to the English translation of Ernst Krause’s study of Erasmus’s work (Krause 1879a; Erasmus Darwin).
3
Emma Nixon had sent two letters to Wheler; initially Wheler had not wanted the first letter returned to her, but later requested that both letters be sent back (see letters from E. A. Wheler, 17 April 1879 and 18 April 1879).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12029,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12029