Ɛpsilon

To Charles Lyell   16 May [1873]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

May 16th

My dear Lyell

I have just received the 4th. Edit of your Antiquity of Man, & I thank you sincerely for this present. I shall be very glad to go over carefully all the many parts which you mention in your Preface, as having been modified or added to.— The book seems to me larger than it was, & it must have cost you an immense amount of labour & thought to bring up to the present standard so many subjects.2

I hope that your health keeps fairly well.

I remain my dear Friend | Your old & true disciple | Charles Darwin

1
The year is established by the date of publication of C. Lyell 1873 (see n. 2, below).
2
CD’s lightly annotated copy of the fourth edition of The geological evidences of the antiquity of man (C. Lyell 1873) is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 527). It was fifty-two pages longer than the third edition (C. Lyell 1863b).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8913,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8913