To J. D. Hooker   18 [March 1860]

Down Bromley Kent

18th

My dear Hooker

I am truly glad that you will come here on Thursday 5th. I shall most thoroughily enjoy it, if I can but be even moderately well.— Cannot you persuade Mrs Hooker to come; Emma & myself shd be very glad to see her.—   After April 1st I will write & tell you the afternoon Trains & in all probability we shall be able to send & meet you at Station. I will ask Huxley to come.—

I am very glad to hear that you are cogitating about your Book.1

Adios, | C. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘March 60’

1
CD had encouraged Hooker to compile his materials into a general work on botany (see letters to J. D. Hooker, 8 February [1860] and 12 March [1860]). Hooker wrote on this subject to John Stevens Henslow in March 1860: ‘Murray and others are very anxious, I understand, that I should bring out a Darwinian book on Botany—a sort of elementary book on Classification, Distribution, and origin of species. I am dubious and considering. I think I could make it a good instructional one with woodcuts illustrating all sorts of transitional forms, independent of all theory.’ (L. Huxley ed. 1918, 1: 535).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 Emma] over ‘&’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2730,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2730