Ɛpsilon

To Edwin Lankester, Ray Society   [18–22 October 1850]1

8 Paragon Ramsgate

Owing to your letter not having been fully directed (Down Farnborough Kent is correct) it went a round & has had to follow me.— I shall return home in about 10 days;2 & I will then immediately look over my M.S. & write to you fully on the subject.3 I will endeavour not to give more trouble than I can help, but there are some preliminary questions which I must ask.

Pray believe me with thanks for your note | Your’s very faithfully | C. Darwin

1
CD’s ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I) records a journey on 14 October to Hartfield, Sussex (where Emma’s sisters Charlotte Langton and Elizabeth Wedgwood lived) and on 18 October to Ramsgate. Emma Darwin’s diary indicates that she and CD joined the children and their governess, who had travelled to Ramsgate on 3 October. According to Henrietta Litchfield, the trip to Ramsgate was made on account of Anne Darwin’s health, which had begun to break down in the summer of 1850 (Emma Darwin (1915) 2: 132). In Emma Darwin’s diary an entry for 27 June reads: ‘Annie first failed about this time’. See also Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I, n. 32.
2
According to his ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix I) and Emma Darwin’s diary, CD left Ramsgate on 22 October.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 (Down Farnborough Kent is correct) 1.2] square brackets in MS

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1363,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1363