From J. D. Hooker   25 July 1868

Royal Gardens Kew

July 25/68

My dear Darwin

Can you tell me about how many languages the “Origin” has appeared in, & how many English, American &c editions—& any other data as to it’s reception abroad. I want a few data to disprove the statement, that the Theory is “fast passing away”.1

We are very anxious about our Infant, which has been suffering for now a week under this prevalent & fatal infantile diarrhœa— —there is scarcely a hope for its recovery.2

Ever yrs affecly | J D Hooker

Two purely Botanical descriptive books have come for you, viz. Mueller’s Fragmenta vol. V & J. A. W. Miguel’s nouveaux materaux pour servir a la conaissance des Cycadées.3

I do not see a particle in the first that could interest you   The latter has some loosish observations on hermaphroditism &c.

Shall I bring either neither or both?—

1
Hooker was preparing his presidential address for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in August (Hooker 1868). He alludes to a hostile review of Variation in the Athenæum (see [Robertson] 1868a, p. 243, and Hooker 1868, p. lxx).
2
Grace Ellen Hooker had been born on 3 June 1868 (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 5 June 1868 and n. 1).
3
Hooker refers to volume 5 of Mueller 1858–82 (Fragmenta phytographiæ australiæ: vol. 5 was published in parts in 1865 and 1866), and to the first parts of Miquel 1868–70. The authors were Ferdinand von Mueller and Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel. Copies have not been found in the Darwin Libraries at CUL or Down.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6288,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6288