Ɛpsilon

From W. W. Reade   31 January 1871

11 Saint Mary Abbot’s Terrace, | Kensington. W.

31st. Jan. ’71

My dear Sir

I called on the editor of the P.M. Gazette when I got up to town this morning. Your book has been already bagged by some earlier sportsman— Whether Lewes or not, he did not say: but probably he is the man—1

I am rather disappointed, but am certainly not competent to review the book: but then very few writers on the P.M.G or any other newspaper are: & I shd. certainly have taken pains with it.

I am very much obliged to you for giving me the pleasure of your personal acquaintance; your book—the Origin—has had considerable influence on my mind. If I had read it earlier in life it might have completely changed the course of it. So naturally I looked forward to seeing you with something more than the ordinary curiosity & interest one feels in every celebrated man.2

I hope when any fresh inquiry occurs to you, you will forward it to me— Your questions even when I cant answer them, always set me thinking—& open my mind to fresh fields of thought & pastures new—

With regards to Mrs. Darwin | believe me | Yours very truly | Winwood Reade

1
John Morley, not George Henry Lewes, reviewed Descent anonymously in the Pall Mall Gazette on 20 and 21 March 1871 ([Morley] 1871a; see letter from John Morley, 26 March 1871). The editor of the Pall Mall Gazette was Frederick Greenwood.
2
Reade had visited Down with Joseph Dalton Hooker, Albert Günther, and Robert Swinhoe from 28 to 30 January 1871 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7468,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7468