Ɛpsilon

To John Phillips   31 March [1874]1

Down Beckenham | Kent

Mar 31

My dear Phillips

I am very much obliged for your invitation, which I shd have enjoyed beyond any thing to have accepted; but I can go nowhere, & the journey to Oxford would nearly annihilate me—2

Judging from your sketches3 it must be indeed a big theory which wd equal your fossils. I shall look out with intense curiosity for some published account of them.

With very sincere thanks pray believe me | yours very truly | Ch. Darwin

P.S I well remember the very pleasant hours, many years ago which I spent with you at York—4

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Phillips, 14 March 1874.
2
Phillips had invited CD to see his specimen of the dinosaur Cetiosaurus oxoniensis; Phillips was keeper of the University Museum in Oxford (ODNB).
4
Phillips was keeper of the Yorkshire Museum from 1825 to 1840, and lived again in York between 1849 and 1853 (ODNB). The only visit to York recorded in CD’s ‘Journal’ took place in October 1845 (Correspondence vol. 3, Appendix II).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9379,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9379