From J. D. Hooker   [after 17 June 1865]1

Dear Darwin

“Kaye’s Indian Mutiny”2 is the best I believe; but I have not read it.

My wife is I think really improving,3 & has been downstairs. I am so glad you liked Huxleys letter4   I thought it sensible shrewd witty & full of honest good feeling. I am not an admirer of Kingsley’s but am glad he has the sense to understand you5

If Etty lets the Gooseberry season go bye without inviting me I will kill her.6

I have no news. Dont forget Tylor’s book.7

Ever Yr aff | J. D. Hooker

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865].
2
The reference is to the first volume of Kaye 1864–76. CD had asked Hooker to recommend a good history of the Indian Mutiny, after having read a novel set against the background of the uprising (see letter to J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865] and n. 9).
3
Frances Harriet Hooker had recently suffered a miscarriage; see letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 June 1865] and n. 5.
6
Hooker refers to Henrietta Emma Darwin. Hooker’s fondness for visiting during gooseberry season was something of a family joke. Francis Darwin, in a manuscript of reminiscences about his father, wrote (DAR 140.3; for typescript, see Robert Brown 1996, p. 8): Hooker too used to send him beautiful ones [bananas] from Kew— They were christened “Kew gooseberries” being I suppose I think considered a return for the gooseberry feast for which Hooker was supposed to come every year to Down See also letter from J. D. Hooker, [20 January 1865], and letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 [May? 1867], Calendar no. 5552).
7
The reference is to Tylor 1865. See letter from J. D. Hooker, [15 June 1865] and n. 2.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4859,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4859