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From Williams & Norgate   28 April 1871

Williams & Norgate, | 14, Henrietta-Street, Covent-Garden. | London, W.C.

April 28 1871.

Ch. Darwin Esq

Dear Sir

With reference to your enquiry about Lavaters Physionomie we beg to give you the following particulars on Brunet’s authority.1

The first edition was published in the German language under the title of “Physiognomische Fragmente” Leipzig 1775/78 in 4 Vols 4to.— The first edition in the French language was published at La Haye in 1781/87 & 1803 in 4 Vols 4to with the title “Essais sur la Physiognomanie”— The next edition is the one you possess in 10 vols 8o. Paris 1805/9.—2

Believe us, Dear Sir | Your obedt. Servants | for Williams & Norgate | S. Dodgshun3

CD annotations

Verso of first page: ‘p. 98 Notice sur Lavater | April 13. 1806’ pencil; ‘p 143. Dec 12— 143. | p 209 5 Jan. 1806’4 blue crayon
1
See the letter to Williams & Norgate, 27 April [1871]. The reference is to Johann Caspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente (see n. 2, below) and to Pierre Gustave Brunet, a French bibliographer.
2
These editions are Lavater 1775–8, 1781–1803, and 1806–9. The edition surviving in the Darwin Library–CUL is Lavater 1820, not the 1806–9 one. Both these editions have the title, L’Art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie.
3
Sydney Dodgshun was the nephew of Edmund Sydney Williams of Williams & Norgate. See also Correspondence vol. 16, letter from Williams & Norgate, 2 June 1868.
4
The annotations refer to passages in Lavater 1806–9 that CD refers to in Expression, p. 3 n. 6, where he uses the date of its publication in a discussion of the assignment of priority.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7725,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7725