WCP5311

Letter (WCP5311.5855)

[1]

Tuesday Night

Jun[e] 29 / [18]58

My dear Hooker

I have just read your letter, & see you want papers at once. I am quite prostrated & can do nothing but I send Wallace1 & my abstract of [the] abstract of [my] letter to Asa Gray,2 3 which gives most imperfectly only the means of change & does not touch [2] on reasons for believing species do change. I daresay all is too late. I hardly care about it.—

But you are too generous to sacrifice so much time & kindness.— It is most generous, most kind. I send sketch of 1844 solely that you may [3] see by your own handwriting that you did read it.—4

I really cannot bear to look at it.— Do not waste much time. It is miserable in me to care at all about priority.—

The table of contents will [4] show what it is. I would make a similar, but shorter & more accurate sketch for Linnean Journal.— I will do anything

God Bless you my dear kind friend. I can write no more. I send this by servant to Kew.5

Yours | C. Darwin [signature]

1
Darwin refers to ARW's manuscript copy of 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.' ARW would later note "The Mss. of my Paper sent to Darwin and printed in the Journal of the Linnean Society, was not returned to me, and seems to be lost. The proofs with the MSS. were perhaps sent to Sir Charles Lyell, or to the secretary of the Linn[ean]. Soc[iety]. & may some day be found. It was written on their foreign note paper." See ARW enclosed envelope sent to Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (WCP1675.1552).
2
Gray, Asa (1810-1888). American botanist.
3

Darwin's contribution to his joint paper with ARW presented at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858 incorporated extracts from his essay of July 1844 and his letter to Asa Gray on 5 September 1857. (Darwin, C. & Wallace, A. 1858. On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Zoology). 3(9): 45-62).

Darwin's contribution to his and ARW’s joint paper presented at the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858 was entitled 'On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection'. This incorporated extracts from his essay of July 1844 and his letter to Asa Gray of 5 September 1857, enclosing an abstract of his ideas on natural selection and the principle of divergence; the "means by which nature makes her species

4
Hooker added annotations to Darwin's fair copy of his 1844 essay on species.
5
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew found in 1840. Joseph Dalton Hooker was Assisant Director 1855-65 before succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, as Director in 1865.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP5311.5855)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15] Transcription checked by Beros, Matt [2019-12-20]

Please cite as “WCP5311,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5311