To Anton Dohrn   24 August [1872]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Aug 24th

My dear Sir

Very many thanks for your kind & pleasant letter.—2 I heartily rejoice at the success of your great Naples undertaking; & I fully believe that you have thus done a great service to science.3 I shall be proud & pleased to send to your Library, whenever you desire it, a complete set of my books.—4

I do not know whether you will care at all about the little book, which I have just finished, but which will not be published till November; but I shall like to give you a copy & will send it to wherever I may hear that you are.—5 I suppose Jena will be the best place. I suppose from your letter that you will leave England immediately, & I did not know that you were now in England. Either now or when you next come to England, I hope that you will come & dine & sleep here; for though I cannot talk much with anyone, yet I shd thus be able to have several little talks with you, which I shd. much enjoy

With every good wish, | Believe me | My dear Sir | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Anton Dohrn, 21 August 1872.
3
On Dohrn’s efforts to establish a zoological station at Naples, see the letter from Anton Dohrn, 21 August 1872 and n. 2.
4
Dohrn had requested scientific institutions and individual authors to donate their publications to the zoological station (see letter from Anton Dohrn, 21 August 1872).
5
Dohrn’s name appears on the presentation list for Expression (Appendix IV).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8486,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8486