To Camille Dareste   16 February [1863]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Feb 16

Dear & respected Sir.

I thank you sincerely for your letter & your pamphlet.—2 I had heard (I think in one of M. Quatrefage’s books)3 of your work & was most anxious to read it, but did not know where to find it. You could not have made me a more valuable present. I have only just returned home & have not yet read your work   when I do if I wish to ask any questions I will venture to trouble you.— Your approbation of my book on Species has gratified me extremely—4 Several naturalists in England, North America & Germany have declared that their opinions on the subject have in some degree been modified, but as far as I know my book has produced no effect whatever in France & this makes me the more gratified by your very kind expression of approbation.5

Pray believe me, Dear Sir. | With much respect. | Yours faithfully & obliged. | Ch Darwin

Copy

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Camille Dareste, 8 February 1863.
2
Letter from Camille Dareste, 8 February 1863. CD refers to Dareste 1863, an annotated copy of which is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
3
Dareste is briefly mentioned in Armand de Quatrefages’s Métamorphoses de l’homme et des animaux, but Quatrefages does not refer to Dareste’s embryological researches (Quatrefages 1862, p. 274 n.). There is an annotated copy of this work in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 691).
5
On the reception of Origin in France, see Conry 1974, Farley 1974, Stebbins 1974, and Corsi and Weindling 1985.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3992,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3992