To H. G. Bronn   10 April [1860]1

Down. | Bromley. Kent.

Ap. 10th.

My dear Sir.

I received this morning 4 Copies of the translation2 and I must trouble you with one line to say how much pleased I am with their appearance.

I have read some pages and my sense seems very clearly given; for poor German Scholar as I am, I could read it with some facility—

M Schweizerbart has sent me a copy of your Geschichte;3 but in thanking him I have not thought it necessary to tell him that I already possessed a copy—; but the copy shall not be wasted for I will give it to the Library of the Royal or Linnean or some other Society which I may find does not possess a copy— The work on the development of organisms4 which you so kindly said you would give me was not in the parcel which contained only the translation & the Geschichte—5

Once again permit me to return you my heartfelt thanks for the undertaking of the translation    I feel it almost the greatest honour ever paid me; & what is of more consequence your well known name will almost ensure the views contained in my work being fairly considered, & that is all that I can wish for—

With sincere respect & gratitude, | I remain, | My dear Sir, | Yours truly obliged, | Ch Darwin.

Prof. Pictet has published a most candid & fair Review in the Bib. Univers of Geneva—6 I agree to every word which he says, Our only difference is that he attaches less weight to my argument in favour of modification; & I attach less weight to the great difficulties.

The German Circular or Advertisement does me much honour.

Copy

1
Dated by the reference to the German translation of Origin.
2
Bronn sent CD the first part (pp. 1–160) of the German translation of Origin (Bronn trans. 1860), published on 4 April (Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel 27 (1860): 683). CD’s copy is in the Darwin Library–CUL, but it is imperfect. The last 56 pages of the book, comprising most of the final chapter of Origin and all of Bronn’s epilogue, are missing. The pages of the second and third parts and some of those in the first are uncut. According to the list of presentation copies of Origin (Appendix III), CD sent the remaining three copies of the German edition to Thomas Henry Huxley, Jan van der Hoeven, and Jakob Moleschott.
3
Bronn 1841–9. CD had read (and annotated) volume 2 in 1846 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 119: 16a). His copy of the work is in the Darwin Library– CUL.
4
Bronn 1858b.
5
The parcel had come from E. Schweizerbart of Stuttgart, the publisher of Bronn 1841–9, Bronn 1858b, and the German translation of Origin.
6
Pictet de la Rive 1860.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2755,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2755