Provenance

Acquired, 1950s to present.

Preferred citation

Cite as: Charles Darwin Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

The Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society was edited and annotated by P. Thomas Carroll, with a foreword by Frederick Burkhart.

The print edition was published by SR Scholarly Resources Inc. in 1976.

Address:

Scholarly Resources, Inc.

1508 Pennsylvania Avenue

Wilmington, Delaware 19806

The Library of the American Philosophical Society took its first step toward assembling a collection of manuscripts and books relating to Charles Darwin and evolution in 1950. In that year, at the suggestion of William E. Lingelbach and with the support of Edwin G. Conklin, librarian and president respectively, the Society purchased at auction in London 177 letters from Darwin to Sir Charles Lyell and some 277 more to Lyell from other British and European scientists. Copies of the letters were deposited in the British Museum, and the originals became the nucleus of the Society's Darwin collection. (See Edwin G. Conklin, "Letters of Charles Darwin and Other Scientists and Philosophers to Sir Charles Lyell, Bart.," Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 95 (1951): 220-22.)

To extend the collection Dr. Lingelbach asked the assistance of Dr. Loren C. Eiseley, who was then writing Darwin's Century. For some years Dr. Eiseley systematically scanned catalogues, made lists of desiderata, and, on visits to booksellers here and in England, purchased books by and about Darwin. Meanwhile the Library continued to acquire letters of Charles Darwin and other 19th century naturalists until it now has almost 700 by Darwin alone.

In 1973, the preparation of a calendar was begun by the Library in the belief that scholars could use a guide that was something more than a list but short of fully edited transcriptions of the Darwin letters. The work has been supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and it is now published with the approval of Mr. George P. Darwin.

The calendar was prepared by P. Thomas Carroll. Besides providing concise descriptions of the contents of unpublished letters, Mr. Carroll has indicated when changes were made in published versions, corrected erroneous transcriptions and added notes. A particularly important contribution of this calendar is the method Mr. Carroll and a colleague, Professor Thaddeus Trenn, have devised for dating the letters more accurately. All Darwin scholars are familiar with this difficult problem and all of them will appreciate help with it.

The present volume contains a substantial portion (about 15%) of all the Darwin letters that have so far been located. A search is now in progress to find as many more as possible for a "Collected Letters of Charles Darwin" of which I am a Co-Editor with Dr. Sydney Smith of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. On the basis of my experience, I can attest to the skill and thoroughness with which Mr. Carroll has dealt with the many difficulties that confront an editor of Darwin's correspondence.

Scholarly interest in Darwin has been growing steadily in recent years and the Library of the American Philosophical Society has become a center of Darwin research on this side of the Atlantic. The present volume is thus a welcome introduction to a collection that has become an indispensable resource for research on the life and work of Charles Darwin and the history of the theory of evolution.

Other finding aids

Many of these letters are described briefly in P. Thomas Carroll, An Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1976). Call no.: 012 D25c.

A comprehensive calendar of Darwin manuscripts is provided in Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith, A Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821-1882 (N.Y.: Garland, 1985). Call no.: 016.091 D25b

General physical description

2.5 linear feet

Related material

Although Darwin's correspondence is very widely dispersed, the largest collection of Darwin Papers is housed at the Cambridge University Library (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/MSS/Darwin.html). Cambridge hosts an on-line calendar of Darwin correspondence at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Departments/Darwin/calintro.html.

The Getz Collection (B D25.m) contains additional Darwin Papers, and the Library houses the complete files of the Darwin Papers Editorial Project (Ms. Coll. 28) (including photocopies of all extant Darwin letters) and microfilm of Darwin materials held at Down House (films 496,13; 496,14), along with material relating to Erasmus Darwin and other members of the Darwin family.

In addition to manuscript letters to and from Charles Darwin, several other items in the Library of the American Philosophical Society may be of interest to the Darwin scholar. These are discussed below in more-or-less general way which, although not a comprehensive list, should give readers some idea of the nature of these collections. The items are discussed in groups, by type of document.

Manuscript items

Included under this rubric are three types of documents:

1. the correspondence and other papers of those people who corresponded with Darwin--all of it relating directly to manuscript letters calendared above;
2. autograph documents from Darwin's own papers or from others, but relating directly to Darwin and not connected to any of the manuscript letters calendared above; and
3. manuscript correspondence to and from other members of the Darwin family besides Charles Darwin.

There are seven items of the first type. All of these pertain to the case of the inheritance of an injury in a goose, as related to Darwin by Reuben A. Blair in the correspondence with him calendared above. The documents are: 1) a photograph of the deformed goose; 2) a letter from Blair concerning the goose and printed in the Sedalia Democrat; 3) a letter from William Henry Flower to Blair; 4) the report by Flower and his assistant, Dr. Larson, on the wings of the affected geese; 5) a letter from Blair to an unnamed correspondent; and 6) letters exchanged between Blair and Spencer Fullerton Baird of the Smithsonian Institution.

There are twenty items of the second type. These documents are: 1) five leaves from the manuscript of the Origin of Species; 2) a signed page from the manuscript of the Descent of Man; 3) a signed page from some other Darwin manuscript (discusses Catasetum); 4) a printed petition for the endowment of research, issued by J. Norman Lockyer and C. E. Appleton, and signed by Darwin; 5) the final page of the petition for a pension for Alfred Russel Wallace, signed by twelve persons, including Darwin; 6) sketches of Darwin, his wife, grandson, and dog, by Albert Goodwin; 7) documents pertaining to Darwin's funeral in Westminster Abbey (eleven items); 8) inscription from the Carroll # 372 statue of Darwin at Oxford University; 9) a discussion of Darwin's B: D25.176 religion by H. Buxton Forman; and 10) a pass to the Zoological Gardens, issued to James Gough by Darwin.

There are 44 items of the third type, which is too many to list individually here. Members of the Darwin family involved in this correspondence are: Emma Wedgwood Darwin (two letters, correspondence with Mrs. Georgiana Rosetta Smyth Flower and with John Maurice Herbert); Francis Darwin (39 letters, correspondence with Leo Abram Errera, George John Romanes, Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing, and Otto Zacharias); and George Howard Darwin (three letters, correspondence with F. W. Surman and Otto Zacharias).

Photocopies of manuscript items

The Library has 26 documents pertaining to Darwin, the originals of which are located elsewhere; only photographically-reproduced paper copies of the documents are at the APS. These fall into two categories: photocopies of manuscript correspondence with Darwin; and photocopies of Darwin-related documents from the papers of Darwin correspondents. In the first category, there are copies of correspondence with the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (one letter), Ignatius Donnelly (two letters), Hugo de Vries (one letter), Benjamin Dann Walsh (eighteen letters), and Jeffries Wyman (two letters). In the second category, there is a photocopy of a letter from Frank J. Mead, editor of the Minneapolis Evening Times, to Ignatius Donnelly, concerning Darwinism and Christianity, and a photocopy of a portion of Donnelly's diary which mentions Darwin.

Microfilms of manuscript items

The Library has nine sets of microfilms of Darwin materials which are on deposit at various institutions all over the world. These films contain the following: 1) correspondence in possession of Down House, Kent (one reel); 2) correspondence in the Robert Stecher Collection at the Cleveland Medical Library Association (one reel); 3) correspondence in the New York Botanical Garden (one reel); letters to Auguste H. Forel, from originals in the Medicinhistorisches Institut, University of Switzerland, and in University of Basel Library (sixteen frames); 4) letters to Bernhard Studer and to A. von Morlot (seven items); 5) letters to J. Moulinie, A. Dohrn, Karl Christoph Vogt, Pictet, and de la Rive, from originals in the Bibliotheque Publique et Universitaire de Geneve (25 letters); 6) notebooks written during the voyage of the Beagle, from Down House, Kent (eighteen notebooks, one reel); 7) diary and correspondence written during the voyage of the Beagle, from Down House, Kent (one reel); and 9) chronology and bibliography of Darwin's life, compiled by Sir Gavin de Beer, containing an incomplete list of all of Darwin's correspondence (two reels).

Photographs and prints

The Library has approximately twelve different photographs and prints of Darwin and of Down House. Some of the best of these are used as illustrations in this calendar.

Books

There are about 150 copies of various editions of Darwin's works in the Library, plus a fair collection of some of the rarer and/or more significant editions of the works of his correspondents, colleagues, and contemporary naturalists and biologists. Space does not permit a full listing of the 150 works by Darwin in the Library, but it is possible to give some indication of the collection by referring to the number assigned to each edition held by the Library in the standard bibliography of Darwin's works (R. B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist [London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1965]). The "Freeman numbers" of the Library's holdings are given below, without comment.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 16, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 95, 99, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 142, 205, 207, 208, 210, 219, 220, 231, 231n, 232, 234, 246, 247, 250, 255, 269, 281, 283, 292, 297, 298, 303, 305, 308, 309, 311, 314, 315, 319, 332, 333, 334, 343, 344, 345, 346, 349, 359, 361, 362, 364, 365, 366, 367, 369, 370, 371, 173, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 381, 383, 396, 405, 406, 407, 409, 411, 416, 425, 426, 432, 445, 447, 452, 454, 458, 461, 464, 468, 471, 473, 476, 477, 492, 503, 507, 508, 512, 513, 517, 530, 541.

In addition to these editions, the Library has at least 26 editions of Darwin's works not listed in Freeman.

Subject card catalogs

For a great many years, the Library has maintained subject card catalogs on Darwinism. These catalogs list any published work among the Library's holdings which mentions or discusses Darwin and/or Darwinism. They provide an unparalleled source for study of the influence of Darwin upon society and upon Western thought. There is one card catalog for books, containing approximately 2,800 entries, and another for journal articles, containing approximately 1,000 entries.

An effort has been made to make this appendix as complete as possible, but as the Library is constantly adding to its Darwin holdings, the careful scholar is warned that this compendium will be out of date in a short time.

Other Darwin Letters in the Greater Philadelphia Area

It is expected that this calendar will render unnecessary many visits to Philadelphia by Darwin scholars which would have been mandatory otherwise. While this is a beneficial result of the publication of this book, it is not without its harmful side effects. The worst of these would have been that the many miscellaneous Darwin materials in other institutions in the Philadelphia area might be neglected; this appendix is designed to prevent this by listing the results of a search by mail for other manuscript Darwin letters in select institutions in the greater Philadelphia area.

To conduct the search, a form letter was sent to the 31 institutions in the area judged by the editor to be the most likely to possess Darwin letters. Thirty institutions replied; they are listed below, and the name of the person responding is given for each institution.

• Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Martha T. Pilling, Library Assistant)
• Bryn Mawr College Library (James Tanis, Head Librarian)
• Bucknell University (George M. Jenks, Librarian, Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library)
• College of Physicians of Philadelphia (Ellen G. Gartrell, Assistant Curator, Historical)
• Dickenson College (Danna Spitzform, Assistant to the Curator, Special Collections, Boyd Lee Spahr Library)
• Drexel University (Michael Halperin, Archives and Special Collection)
• Eleutherian Mills Historical Library (Betty-Bright P. Low, Research and Reference Librarian)
• Franklin and Marshall College (Frances L. Hopkins, Reference Librarian, Fackenthal Library)
• The Franklin Institute (Stephanie A. Morris, Associate Archivist)
• Free Library of Philadelphia (Howell J. Heaney, Rare Book Librarian)
• Hahnemann Medical College Library (Barbara Williams, Acting Librarian)
• Haverford College Library (Edwin B. Bronner, Librarian)
• Historical Society of Delaware (Gladys M. Coghlan)
• Jefferson Medical College Library (Robert T. Lentz, Librarian)
• Lafayette College (Ronald E. Robbins, Reference Librarian, David Bishop Skillman Library)
• Lehigh University (James D. Mack, Director of University Libraries, Linderman Library)
• Library Company of Philadelphia (Edwin Wolf, II, Librarian)
• Pennsylvania State University (Dorrie Evans, Rare Books and Special Collections, Fred Lewis Pattee Library)
• Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science Library (Elizabeth W. J. Chase, Librarian)
• Princeton University Library (Mardel Pacheco, Assistant to Curator of Manuscripts)
• Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation Museum and Library (Clive E. Driver, Director)
• Saint Joseph's College (Josephine Savaro, Head Librarian, Drexel Library)
• Swarthmore College (Judith Pullam, Administrative Assistant, Thomas E. and Jeanette L. McCabe Library)
• Temple University (Thomas M. Whitehead, Head, Special Collections Department, Samuel Paley Library)
• University of Delaware Libraries (Stuart Dick, Special Collections, Hugh M. Morris Library)
• University of Pennsylvania Libraries (Neda Westlake, Rare Book Collection)
• Ursinus College (Calvin D. Yost, Jr., Librarian, Myrin Library)
• Villanova University (Mary A. Dorrian, Readers Service, Falvey Memorial Library)
• Wagner Free Institute of Science (Robert Chambers, Director)
• and Widener College (Lee C. Brown, Librarian, Wolfgram Memorial Library)

The editor is grateful for the cooperation of these institutions and individuals.

Twenty-four letters of Charles Darwin were produced by the search. They are listed below, in chronological order.

All letters are listed with the permission of their owners, for which permission the editor is grateful.

1. 1838 January 23 Sunday, to John Stevens Henslow; Al, S by init.; 4p.; courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
2. 1843 July 19th, to Ernest Dieffenbach; ALS; 2p.; courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
3. 1853 Jan. 10th, to Albany Hancock; ALS; 4p.; courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
4. ?1854 Nov. 20th, to John Stevens Henslow; ALS; 2p.; courtesy of the Princeton University Library.
5. 1860 March. 4th, to Joseph Leidy; ALS; 4p.; courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (see their Collection 1). See calendar entry for this letter (number 202), page 69, above.
6. 1860 May 8., to the Secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (see their Collection 330).
7. 1862 April 25th, to Heinrich Georg Bronn; ALS; 6p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
8. 1871 July 1, to?; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
9. 1872 Oct. 10th, to Alpheus Hyatt; ALS; 4p.; courtesy of the Princeton University Library (see the Hyatt and Mayer Correspondence).
10. 1873 Feb 19, to William M. Canby; LS; 3p.; William M. Canby Correspondence, Society of Natural History of Delaware Archives, on deposit at the Historical Society of Delaware.
11. 1873 May 7, to William M. Canby; LS; 2p.; William M. Canby Correspondence, Society of Natural History of Delaware Archives, on deposit at the Historical Society of Delaware.
12. 1874 May 11, to Thomas Lauder Brunton; LS; 4p.; courtesy of the Princeton University Library.
13. 1874 June 30., to?; LS; 2p.; courtesy of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
14. 1875 Oct. 30th, to Messrs. Smith & Elder; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
15. 1876 Aug. 21st, to Messrs. Smith & Elder; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
16. 1876 Nov. 20th, to?; LS; 2p.; original in private possession of Dr. Seymour Adelman, c/o James Tanis, Head Librarian, Bryn Mawr College Library.
17. 1877 March 7., to Messrs. Smith & Elder; LS; 4p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
18. 1877 June 6th, to?; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of Haverford College Library (Charles Roberts Autograph Letters Collection).
19. 1880 Nov. 5, to?; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
20. 1882 Feb 22, to?; LS; 4p.; courtesy of Princeton University Library (privately owned; from the private library of William H. Scheide, Princeton, New Jersey; no connection with Princeton University Library).
21. n.y. April 6th., to?; ALS; 3p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
22. n.y. May 7, to?; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of Philip Schwartz, M.D., Medical Research Director, Warren State Hospital, Warren, Pennsylvania (privately owned by Dr. Schwartz).
23. n.y. Oct 2d., to?; ALS; 1p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.
24. n.y. Oct 14th, to "Madam"; ALS; 2p.; courtesy of Lehigh University.

Bibliography

Descriptive Abbreviations

Descriptive abbreviations always indicate three things: the type of document being calendared; whether or not the document is in the hand of the author of the document; and the presence or absence of the author's signature. Sometimes they also give additional information, such as indication that the signature is in the form of initials only. These abbreviations are more-or-less standardized among archivists, and they are discussed elsewhere in considerable detail, so only a brief explanation of them is provided below. Those unfamiliar with such abbreviations may consult the more extended discussion published elsewhere for details.

As used in this calendar, descriptive abbreviations consist of a combination of one or more basic abbreviations (usually each basic abbreviation is a single letter) into a composite abbreviation which fully describes the document being calendared. The basic abbreviations used are the following:

These basic forms can be combined to form composite abbreviations which describe the item being calendared. It would be foolish to list all the possible permutations of the basic forms here, especially since the many possible composite abbreviations can be suggested well by a few examples, such as the following: "ALS" indicates a holograph letter signed by the author; "LS" indicates a letter signed by the author but written in the hand of an amanuensis; "AN on p.c., S by init." indicates a holograph note written on a postal card and initialed, but not signed in full, by the author. The other possible combinations should follow logically from these examples, especially if readers keep in mind the following rule of thumb: assume that the author or composer of the item had nothing to do with the actual writing of the item unless indicated otherwise.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations of periodical titles not listed below may be found in the World List of Scientific Periodicals, 1900-1960, fourth edition. Abbreviations of titles not found in the World List were derived by the editor by using the system of abbreviation described in the World List; the resultant abbreviated titles are listed below. This rather unorthodox approach to abbreviating periodicals in an American publication (i.e. using an English source for abbreviations rather than, say, the Union List of Serials) was employed because the World List, unlike other sources, includes many of the more obscure titles cited by Darwin, and also because the World List abbreviations seem to the author to be the most systematic, consistent, and understandable of any yet devised.

With exceptions noted below, Darwin titles are shortened to the forms used as headings in Part 2 of R.B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, [first edition] (London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1965). For each Darwin work cited, the short title and the year of publication only are given, except in cases in which more than one issue of that title appear in the given year; in such cases, the number of the issue used, as found in the Freeman Handlist, is also provided. In places where only the short title and the year appear, and Freeman indicates that more than one issue of that title appeared in that year, the reader may assume that what is said applies to all of these issues or variants.

Common abbreviations, such as "univ." for "university", are omitted, of course.

Footnotes

Footnotes

¹ This is no place for a systematic review of the literature, but here are some examples: on the origins of Darwin's ideas, see recent articles by Barbara G. Beddall, Sandra Herbert, and Joel S. Schwartz in the Journal of the History of Biology, and Camille Limoges, La sélection naturelle: C tude sur la premiére constitution d'un concept (1837-1859) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970); on Darwin's method, see Michael T. Ghiselin, The Triumph of the Darwinian Method (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969), and Stephen Jay Gould, "Darwin's `Big Book'," Science, N.Y., 188 (1975): 824-26; on the dissemination and early reception of Darwin's ideas, see Thomas F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 1974), and David L. Hull, Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973); on the ultimate acceptance of Darwinism, see William B. Provine, The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971); on the enlightenment of modern scientists, besides the numerous examples in population genetics, see Paul Ekman, ed., Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review (New York: Academic Press, 1973).

² Some recent published transcriptions of Darwin's manuscripts include, in chronological order of publication: Barlow, ed., Autobiography; Darwin and Henslow; Howard E. Gruber, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity, Together with Darwin's Early and Unpublished Notebooks, transcribed and annotated by Paul H. Barrett (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1974); and Stauffer, ed., CD's Nat. Selection. This list is hardly exhaustive. See note 16 for recent printings of Darwin's letters.

³ Thomas Jefferson to Robert Walsh, April 5, 1823, as quoted in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, et. al. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1950-), I, xi.

⁴ Nora Barlow, ed., Autobiography.

⁵ Darwin to Lyell, Sept. 12, [1860], APS; see below, p. 85. (This and other examples of Darwin's letters used in the introduction are selected from unpublished portions of letters now in the American Philosophical Society; they illustrate the wealth of material edited out of previously published versions of Darwin's letters.) The passage on Ammonites which is being corrected is in Darwin, Origin (1859 or 1860), 321-22; according to Peckham, Variorum Origin, 531-32, lines 78-83, Darwin never brought his published claim regarding Ammonites into agreement with the admissions made to Lyell in this letter.

⁶ For example, in a letter to Lyell dated November 18, 1849, and printed in More Letters, II, 130-31, letter 486, Darwin wrote that "without most distinct evidence I will never admit that a dike joins on rectangularly to a stream of lava." Sixteen days later, in a letter dated December 4, he retreated somewhat from this position: "I remember in my last letter talking very big about dikes never being connected directly (i.e. rectangularly) with lava-streams; but it is clear that such occur frequently at the Sandwich Is[lan]ds without any cones." Although he continues by claiming that the situation at the Sandwich Islands [i.e. Hawaii] is "a rare exceptional case", Darwin clearly is amending his earlier claim. The December 4 letter has not been published before. See below, pp. 32-34.

⁷ Darwin to Lyell, December 4, [1860], APS, see below, pp. 89-90.

⁸ Just after the Origin was published, during the period when reviews of the book began to appear, Darwin told Asa Gray, "I have made up my mind to be well abused; but I think it of importance that my notions sh[oul]d be read by intelligent men, accustomed to scientific argument though not naturalists. It may seem absurd, but I think such men will drag after them those naturalists, who have too firmly fixed in their heads that a species is an entity." (Darwin to Asa Gray, December 21, [1859], Gray Herbarium, Harvard University; printed in Life and Letters II, 244-45; text above from manuscript letter.) In this passage, Darwin implied that his evolutionary "notions" were revolutionary in nature, at least among naturalists, and that he expected his supporters to come from outside the community of naturalists. How important a role he foresaw for these supporters is revealed four months later in his remark to Lyell that "the non-comittal [ sic] men do not always most help a science." (Darwin to Lyell, April 27/28, [1860], APS, see below, p. 76.) Darwin reiterates this view and identifies some of his supporters in May when he writes to Lyell: "I can very plainly see, as I lately told [Joseph Dalton] Hooker, that my Book would have been & [would] be a mere flash in the pan, were it not for you, Hooker & a few others." (Darwin to Lyell, May 18, [1860], APS, see below, p. 78.) A month later-ironically on the eve of the historic Oxford meeting of the B.A.A.S. at which the Origin was debated so hotly-Darwin despaired of the rapid conversion of naturalists through the intercession of supporters, arguing instead that "time alone will bring naturalists round, when they find that they can explain many facts on such views as mine, & cannot on view of creation." (Darwin to Lyell, [June] 25, [1860], APS, see below, p. 82.) It is almost as if Darwin's practice of population thinking, so well-used on plant and animal species, was being applied to scientific communities; social historians and sociologists of science may find this of some interest, as might some philosophers of science. The foregoing is not meant, of course, to delineate the recent historiography of the social side of Darwin studies; for a stimulating marxist treatment of some aspects of this, see Robert Young, "The Historiographic and Ideological Contexts of the Nineteenth-Century Debate on Man's Place in Nature," in MikulC![scaron] Teich and Robert Young, eds., Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham (London: Heinemann, 1973), 344-438, esp. 361-88.

⁹ In a confidence to Lyell in 1860, Darwin revealed his views on the role of priority in science, exposing in the process why he apparently never felt completely comfortable publishing simultaneously with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858. Regarding a reference to Darwin by Asa Gray in one of the later's works, Darwin wrote: "he put my name before [that of Edward] Forbes on Glacial distribution: & I told him in answer that I had written out the notion 3 or 4 years before Forbes, but that I had no sort of claim to notice on this head, as he published first, & that in the Origin I shd. of course take no notice of this." (Darwin to Lyell, [February] 12, [1860], APS, see below, p. 71.) This gives some indication of Darwin's scrupulous professional ethics. On cirripedes, Darwin's expectations regarding the support he would receive for his radical discoveries were far more limited than were his expectations for his work on the origin of species. When Albany Hancock informed Darwin that he believed in Darwin's discovery of complemental males, Darwin replied that he had "greatly feared tha no one would believe in them; and now I know that [Richard] Owen, [James Dwight] Dana, and yourself are believers, I am most heartily content." (Darwin to Hancock, January 10, [1853], as printed in John Hancock, [ed.], "Letters from C. Darwin, Esq., to A. Hancock, Esq.," Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumb., 8, pt. 2 [1886]: 250-78, at 269; original at Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.)

¹⁰ Darwin to Lyell, August 9, [1838], APS, see below, p. 4. Although Darwin probably was not anticipating it here, FitzRoy committed suicide in 1865.

¹¹ Darwin to Lyell, July 30, [1860], APS, see below, p. 83.)

¹² In 1860, for example, he wrote Lyell: "I have nothing to say, as I have seen no one (except indeed [Joseph Dalton] Hooker for an hour or two at Kew) for an age." (Darwin to Lyell, July 30, [1860], APS, see below, p. 83.) This letter implies that the content of Darwin's meetings with colleagues forms much of the meat of his letters. Still, Darwin exaggerates in his claim that, when he has seen no one, he has nothing to say.

¹³ For example, we can tell from the letters that Darwin met Lyell in London on February 6, 1845. (Darwin to Lyell, Saturday, [February 8, 1845], APS, see below, pp. 16-17.) Unfortunately, this type of information is sometimes incorrect, either because Darwin would announce a date for a trip to London and then be too ill to travel on the appointed day, which occurred regularly, or because Darwin got his dates mixed up, which occurred very occasionally.

¹⁴ On his daughter's illness, see letters to Lyell during summer of 1860 (Darwin to Lyell, May 18, [1860], et seq., APS; see below, p. 78 ff). See especially: Darwin to Lyell, July 30, [1860], APS, see below, p. 83; and ibid., August 11, [1860], APS, see below, pp. 83-84. The first chapter of Darwin's book on insectivorous plants begins: "During the summer of 1860, I was surprised by finding how large a number of insects were caught by the leaves of the common sun-dew ( Drosera rotundifolia) on a heath in Sussex. I had heard that insects were thus caught, but knew nothing further on the subject." (Darwin, Insectivorous Plants [1875], 1.)

¹⁵ On the addition to Down House, see: Darwin to [William] Marshall, September 19, 1876, APS, see below, p. 173, ibid., September 29, [1876], APS, see below, pp. 173-74; and ibid., November 22, [1876], APS, see below, p. 174. On the purchase of an enema, see Darwin to?, November 8, [1871-1875], APS, see below, p. 149.

¹⁶ A great many Darwin letters appear in the three volumes of Life and Letters the two volumes of More Letters, and the two volumes of Emma Darwin. A few of the many locations in which Darwin correspondence has appeared recently are, in chronological order: Gavin de Beer, "Further Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Ann. Sci., 14 (1958): 83-115; idem, ed., "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond., 14 (1959); 12-66; Robert M. Stecher, "The Darwin-Innes Letters: The Correspondence of an Evolutionist with His Vicar, 1848-1884," Ann. Sci., 17 (1961): 201-58; Darwin and Henslow; Gavin de Beer, ed., "The Darwin Letters at Shrewsbury School," Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond., 23 (1968): 68-85; Robert M. Stecher, "The Darwin-Bates Letters: Correspondence between Two Nineteenth-Century Travellers and Naturalists," Ann. Sci., 25 (1969): 1-47, 95-125; Paul H. Barrett and Alain F. Corcos, "A Letter from Alexander Humboldt to Charles Darwin," J. Hist. Med., 27 (1972): 159-72; Barbara G. Beddall, " `Notes for Mr. Darwin': Letters to Charles Darwin from Edward Blyth at Calcutta: A Study in the Process of Discovery," Journal of the History of Biology, 6 (1973): 69-95; Thaddeus J. Trenn, "Charles Darwin, Fossil Cirripedes, and Robert Fitch: Presenting Sixteen Hitherto Unpublished Darwin Letters of 1849 to 1851," Proc. Am. phil. Soc., 118 (1974): 471-91; and Lewis S. Feuer, "Is the `Darwin-Marx Correspondence' Authentic?" Ann. Sci., 32 (1975): 1-12. For a reasonably complete, but by no means exhaustive, bibliography of Darwin letters published somewhat earlier, see Gavin de Beer, ed., "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit., this note, 60-62 and 66.

¹⁷ Life and Letters I, iii.

¹⁸ More Letters, I, viii.

¹⁹ Emma Darwin, I, vii. The count of 66 letters is from the privately printed edition, published in 1904; other editions are probably slightly different.

²⁰ Life and Letters I, iv.

²¹ More Letters, I, ix.

²² Emma Darwin, I, ix. Italics added.

²³ See, for example, the statement of the method of dating used by Francis Darwin and Seward ( More Letters, I, x). For an example of an improperly dated letter, see Darwin to Asa Gray, April 4, [1858]; this letter is dated "1859" in the first edition of Life and Letters ([1887], II, 154-55), but it is deleted from later editions, probably because Francis Darwin realized that it was improperly dated.

²⁴ See note 16, above.

²⁵ The usual reason for a poor transcription is the inability of the transcriber to read Darwin's handwriting, but still another reason is that thorough editorial standards are usually not employed for the transcription of the small number of letters usually included in these articles. A simple but important example is the use of parentheses instead of brackets around the editorially-added word "Cryptophialus" in the printed text of a letter to Albany Hancock, December 25, [1849], as printed in John Hancock, [ed.], "Letters from C. Darwin, Esq., to A. Hancock, Esq.," Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumb., 8 (1886): 250-78, at p. 258; original at APS, see below, p. 34. The unsuspecting scholar without access to the original letter might conclude from the printed text that by 1849 Darwin had identified his Arthrobalanus specimen as a Cryptophialus; this Darwin had not done-and in fact probably did not do until 1853-and realization of this is central to an understanding of Darwin's cirripede work (Thaddeus J. Trenn, "Charles Darwin, Fossil Cirripedes, and Robert Fitch: Presenting Sixteen Hitherto Unpublished Darwin Letters of 1849 to 1851," op. cit., note 16, passim, esp. 472-73 and 472n.

²⁶ In some cases, a trip to Philadelphia might be avoided entirely by the acquisition of photocopies of letters of interest by mail-a practice which the Society wishes to encourage.

²⁷ This unfortunate circumstance results from Darwin's habit of destroying letters received; this practice was not discontinued until 1862, and even after that date Darwin did not save all of his letters. Apparently he did not think of letters in the way Jefferson did when he wrote the passage quoted earlier. ( Life and Letters I, v.)

²⁸ Darwin meant that he respected Lyell's scientific and professional judgment above that of all others. See Life and Letters II, 119.

²⁹ See particularly Darwin to Herbert, June 2, 1833, APS, see below, p. 2. The passage in this letter which discusses carnations and peaches shows Darwin's exposure to such subjects at an early age, and indicates that Darwin probably also discussed such topics while at Cambridge.

³⁰ "A Guide to Practical Calendaring," American Archivist, 11 (1948): 123-40, at 127.

³¹ Frank Freidel, ed., Harvard Guide to American History, rev. ed., 2v. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1974), I, 23.

³² More Letters, I, x.

³³ To the best of the editor's knowledge, this regularity in the Darwin addresses was first discussed and employed for dating purposes by Gavin de Beer; see de Beer, "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin," op. cit., note 16, 13-14. As de Beer points out, many of the printed versions of the letters give the simple address of "Down", thereby obscuring the variant headings.

³⁴ The editors state this explicitly in More Letters, I, x.

³⁵ The For the sake of argument, traditional forms are enumerated in: Morris L. Radoff, "A Guide to Practical Calendaring," op. cit., note 30; and idem, "A Practical Guide to Calendaring," American Archivist, 11 (1948): 203-22.

Some might also object to the method of production (i.e. photo offset of a carefully-proofed typescript, rather than typeset), but this was necessary to keep the cost per copy down to a level reasonable enough so that scholars could afford personal copies of the calendar.

³⁶ Although it is somewhat out of fashion to give the dimensions -- the argument against inclusion being that, given the disparities of different types of handwriting, size is a poor indicator of length of text -- measurements are given in this calendar because of two special factors: 1) most of the letters in the calendar are in Darwin's hand, so there is an uncommonly good relationship between dimensions and length of text; and 2) the dimensions of Darwin's stationery in some cases can be used to corroborate a determination of a date for an undated letter. For example, a claim that an undated letter on stationery measuring eight by five inches was written in, say, 1860, will be corroborated if other Darwin letters known to have been written around this same date also are written on stationery of the same size. This is by no means a hard and fast rule, however; Darwin apparently reverted to leftover scraps and remainders of old stationery on occasion.

³⁷ Radoff, "A Guide to Practical Calendaring," op. cit., note 30, 134.

³⁸ An example of an editorial addition is the "(forwarded to)" in the address for Herbert in Darwin to Herbert, June, 1832, pp. 1-2 below. An example of a dubious reading is the "(S?)" in the address for Herbert in Darwin to Herbert, [September 13, 1828], p. 1 below. An example of material appearing in parentheses in the original is Lyell's "(105)" in his endorsement of Darwin to Lyell, [December (?19), 1837], p. 4 below.

³⁹ Such marks by Francis Darwin are usually readily distinguishable because they often are written in a distinctive purple ink. Francis Darwin refers to these marks himself in a letter to Léo Abram Errera when he says: "Please excuse the numbers of reference with which I have marked the letters [from Charles Darwin to Errera, which Errera lent to Francis for use in the Life and Letters]." (F. Darwin to Errera, [October 25, 1882]. APS; see appendix below.)

⁴⁰ In addition, despite the many errors and other indications of hurriedness in Darwin's letters, the many corrections in the letters indicate that the meticulous Darwin paid reasonably close attention to details of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the like. A good illustration of this trait appears in a letter to Lyell in which Darwin tells the geologist that he had misspelled "Van Diemen's Land [i.e. Tasmania]" in a manuscript (Darwin to Lyell, [August 2, 1845], APS, calendar listing below, pp. 17-18; this part of the letter is not brought out in the calendar entry.)

Acknowledgements

Despite indications to the contrary on the title page, this calendar was by no means the work of one or even two persons; a great many acknowledgements -- too many, in fact, for all of them to be explicit here, and too deeply felt by the editor for adequate expression in words -- are in order.

Above all else, of course, this calendar would not have been possible had it not been for the prodigious efforts of Charles Darwin himself, and so this book is his. By poring over his letters, I believe, I have come to know him fairly intimately, and I can assure my readers that, in this case at least, the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt is inapplicable. I know that this admission bodes ill for my retention of a critical historical perspective, but it would be a worse sin for me to feign objectivity. Besides, if my readers study these letters as I have, I think they will agree in all fairness that we should all be grateful that such a wonderful man as Darwin was once among us, however briefly and reclusively.

I am equally grateful to Darwin's great-grandson, Mr. George P. Darwin, for permission to produce this calendar and to quote extensively from the letters, regardless of the intimacy of their contents; this graciousness demonstrates that devotion to rigorous scholarship is as much the Darwin hallmark today as it was a century ago.

Financial support for the preparation of this calendar was provided by a generous gift to the American Philosophical Society by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The commodious facilities of the Library of the American Philosophical Society are a scholar's delight; I am grateful to the Society for the privilege of using them. Each of my colleagues on the Library staff has given generously of his or her time and expertise to the production of this work. Those who have contributed directly to the final manuscript were Helen Black, who conscientiously typed both my handwritten transcriptions of the letters and the manuscript of the front matter, and B. Dodelin, who prepared the photographic prints for the illustrations. Everyone else, each in his or her own way, not only added to this work but also made my stay at the Library pleasurable. I regret that there is not enough space to name them individually.

Many other individuals aided this project. I am grateful to Dr. Frederick Burkhardt, President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies, for writing the foreword. Special thanks go to Dr. Sydney Smith, Lecturer in Zoology, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge University, and to Mr. Peter Gautrey, Cambridge University Library; with astonishing skill and resourcefulness they helped to date and otherwise identify the most intransigent letters in the collection. Similarly, Dr. Thaddeus J. Trenn, Department of the History of Science, University of Regensburg, helped considerably in the identification of letters from Darwin's cirripede period; in addition, as I discuss in the Introduction, Dr. Trenn has been my collaborator in the attempt to make sense of the many variant Down House addresses in the headings of Darwin's letters. Frederick Burkhardt has helped with the identification and arrangement of some of the letters. Professor Malcolm J. Kottler, Department of Ecology and Behavioral Biology, University of Minnesota, shared with me all of his determinations of the dates and the instances of publication of the Darwin-Romanes letters. Dr. Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., Librarian of the American Philosophical Society, not only supervised the project but also arranged for the publication of the work. In addition to the aid provided to me as part of their regular duties, Mr. Carl F. Miller, Assistant Manuscripts Librarian, and Mr. Murphy D. Smith, Associate Librarian, American Philosophical Society Library, were especially helpful in deciphering the more exotic examples of Darwin's difficult handwriting. The latter also offered many useful suggestions concerning format of entries. Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., Jeffrey L. Sturchio, and Frederick Burkhardt provided criticisms of early drafts of the front matter; Frederick Burkhardt also helped to proofread the calendar entries. Mr. Michael Glazier, President of Scholarly Resources, Inc., has been a generous and patient publisher. Robert F. Bud, Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, helped to investigate British copyrights of the illustrations. Professor Leonard G. Wilson, Department of the History of Medicine, University of Minnesota, helped to publicize the calendar among Darwin scholars.

The following individuals aided in transcribing, dating, locating, and/or annotating one or more letters: Marianne Abel, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; John Angell, Free Library of Philadelphia; Sir Hedley Atkins, M.D., Down House; Suzanne W. Brown, Chicago Academy of Sciences; Colin Burton, Baird & Tatlock (London) Ltd.; Dr. Ralph Colp, Jr.; Professor Joseph Ewan, Department of Biology, Tulane University; Ellen G. Gartrell, Assistant Curator, Historical Collections, College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Sheila K. Hart, Harvard College Library; F. A. Milligan, Hereford and Worcester County [England] Libraries; Professor James A. Rogers, Department of History, Claremont Men's College; Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania; Margaret Teransky, Free Library of Philadelphia; Philip Titheradge, Down House; and Professor David B. Wilson, Department of History, University of Oklahoma. My colleague and friend Roy Goodman here in the Library is unparalleled as a reference librarian.

In the course of my research, I have enjoyed the facilities of and/or received the competent assistance of the staffs of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Burndy Library, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Harvey S. Firestone Library of Princeton University, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Harvard College Library, the Hereford and Worcester County [England] Libraries, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library of the University of Pennsylvania. I am also grateful to all those persons and institutions mentioned in the second appendix for making its compilation possible. A copy of the Darwin letter to Gray which I quote in the introduction was provided by the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University, which has the original. Those who have graciously given permission for reproduction of one or another of the illustrations are acknowledged where the figures appear.

Preparation of this calendar has consumed much of my time and attention over the last two years. Accordingly, I should like to thank the faculty, the staff, and my fellow graduate students in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania for tolerating my reduced visibility around the Department. Similarly, my wife Nan, my late father, and my mother have suffered me cheerfully whenever the excesses of my enthusiasm for Darwin and the history of science have overflowed into my family life.

Many others, too numerous to mention, have aided the compilation of this volume in some way. Despite all this help, endless factual and interpretive errors, of which I am painfully aware and for which I am solely responsible, undoubtedly remain. I hope that scholars will both forgive me for these and report them to the Library for the benefit of future students of Darwin.

P. T. C.

Naval History Note

The Darwin Papers contain at least one item which may be of interest to naval historians:

Darwin, Charles. Letter to Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. 1836 October - 1836 November. Wishes to converse concerning Wilkes' "long...voyage." 1 page. (B D25.192).

African American History Note

One of the most important natural historians in nineteenth-century Britain, Charles Darwin provided the first compelling mechanism to account for organismal evolutionary change. In at least two letters in the Darwin collection, the naturalist reflects upon the nature of race. In a letter dated 8 October [1845], Darwin questions whether there is a connection between race and susceptibility to different types of lice. In a letter dated 25 October [1859], Darwin dispels other scientists' claims that there are several species of man.

Early American History Note

This manuscript collection falls outside the geographic scope of the Early American guide (British North America and the United States before 1840). It may be of interest to scholars interested in global history, international relations, imperialism, or the U.S. in the world.