WCP5336

Letter (WCP5336.5881)

[1]

Wells Terrace

Ikley, Otley

Yorkshire

Sunday1

My dear Hooker

I have just read a review on my book in Athenaeum2 & it excites my curiosity much, who is author.

If you sh[oul]d hear who writes in Athenaeum, I wish you would tell me. — It seems to me well done, but the Reviewer gives no new objections, & being hostile passes over ever single argument in favour of the doctrine, instead of creation. I fear from tone of [2] review that I have written in a conceited & cock-sure style, which shames me a little. — There is another Review, of which I sh[oul]d like to know the author, viz of H. C. Watsons3 in G. Chronicle.4 Some of the remarks are like yours, & he does deserve punishment, but surely the review is too severe: don't you think so? —

I hope you get the 3 copies for foreign Botanists in time for your parcel, & [3] your own copy. I have heard from Carpenter5 who I think is likely to be a convert. Also from Quatrefages,6 who is inclined to go a long way with us: he says he exhibited in his Lectures a diagram closely like mine!

I shall stay here one fortnight more & then go to Down staying on road at Shrewsbury a week. I have been very unfortunate, out of seven weeks, I have [4] been confined for five to the House. — This has been bad for me, as I have not been able to help thinking to foolish extent about my Book7. If some 4 or 5 good men come round nearly to our view, I shall not fear ultimate success. I long to hear what Huxley8 thinks. Is you introduction published?9 I suppose that you will sell it separately: please answer this for I want extra copy to send away to Wallace.

I am very bothersome: farewell | Yours affect[ionally] | C. Darwin [signature]

I was very glad to see Royal Medal for Mr Bentham.10,11

1
Dated 20 November 1859 by reference to a review of Origin in Athenaeum, 15 November 1859, pp. 659-60.
2
[Leifchild, J.R] 1859. 'On the Origin of Species.' Athenauem, No. 1673. London: J. Francis, 659-660.
3
Watson, Hewett Cottrell (1804-1881). Phrenologist, botanist and evolutionary theorist.
4
[Lindley, J.] 1859. Gardener's Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, (21 November). London: Published for the Proprietors, 911-912.
5
Carpenter, William Benjamin (1813-1885). British physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist.
6
Quatrefages de Bréau, Jean Louis Armand de (1810-1892). French biologist and anthropologist, professor of natural history at the Lycée Henri-IV, Paris 1850. Honorary member of the Royal Society of London, 1879.
7
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London, UK: John Murray.
8
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895). British biologist known as "Darwin's Bulldog".
9
Hooker, J. D. 1859. On the Flora of Australia, Its Origins, Affinities, and Distribution; Being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania. London: Lovell Revee.Hooker, J. D. 1859. On the Flora of Australia, Its Origins, Affinities, and Distribution; Being an Introductory Essay to the Flora of Tasmania. London: Lovell Revee.
10
Bentham, George (1800-1884). British botanist.
11
This sentence is written vertically up the left-hand margin of page 4.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP5336.5881)]

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Revision history

Transcribed by Darwin Correspondence Project [2015-06-10] Transcription checked by Beros, Matt [2019-12-20]

Please cite as “WCP5336,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5336