Correspondence of Charles Darwin
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
had correspondence with numerous other luminaries of his age and members of his family
Darwin — Wedgwood family
The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin...
. These have provided many insights about the nineteenth century, from scientific exploration and travel to religious debate and discussion. The letters also illuminate many aspects of Darwin's work: the development of his scientific ideas; his opinions on issues he did not publish about (his letters to Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
, for example, show his changing opinions on the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
); matters about his character and health; the ways in which he relied upon correspondence for much of his investigations into natural history; and the ways in which he marshalled scientific support for his ideas amongst friends and colleagues.
Analysis and publication of Darwin's correspondence has been a main focus of the so-called Darwin Industry
Darwin Industry
The Darwin Industry is the large amount of historical scholarship about, and the large community of historians of science working on, Charles Darwin's life, work, and influence...
of historical scholarship.
History
Correspondence was central to Darwin's research. In his early years, most of the letters he filed away immediately were those relevant to one of his ongoing scientific projects. Other letters were stuck onto "spits", as he called them, and when his slender stock of these was exhausted, he would burn the letters of several years, in order that he might make use of the liberated "spits." This process, carried on for years, destroyed many of the letters received before 1862. Even so, the number of letters is remarkable, even in these early years. After publication of the Origin of Species, Darwin's children convinced him to save a far greater proportion of his correspondence, so that the sequence from the early 1860s onwards is remarkably full.
Francis Darwin
Sir Francis "Frank" Darwin, FRS , a son of the British naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin, followed his father into botany.-Biography:Francis Darwin was born in Down House, Downe, Kent in 1848...
published The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin in three volumes, to accompany the publication of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin is the autobiography of the British naturalist Charles Darwin which was published in 1887, five years after his death....
. This was later followed by two volumes of More Letters of Charles Darwin published in 1902.
In 1974 the Darwin Correspondence Project was founded at Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
by Frederick Burkhardt
Frederick Burkhardt
Professor Frederick Burkhardt was for many years the President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies . His decades of work on The Correspondence of Charles Darwin constituted a signal example of dedication to a demanding and ambitious scholarly enterprise. He was an Honorary Fellow...
, with the aid of Sydney Smith. Cambridge University owns 9,000 letters and has obtained copies of another 6,000 held in private collections. New letters are being discovered at around 60 per year and photocopies of new finds should be sent to the project, which will eventually publish them. Volumes of the correspondence appear at regular intervals from Cambridge University Press, with the content freely available online after four years.
The historian of science Janet Browne has argued in her recent biography of Darwin that his ability to correspond daily played a crucial role in the development of his theory and his ability to garner support for it from colleagues.
List of notable persons with whom Darwin corresponded
Entries marked with asterisks denote persons for which 100 letters or more have been located. All of these letters can be found on the Darwin Correspondence Project website.- Louis AgassizLouis AgassizJean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
- Alexander BainAlexander BainAlexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist in the British school of empiricism who was a prominent and innovative figure in the fields of psychology, linguistics, logic, moral philosophy and education reform...
- Henry Walter BatesHenry Walter BatesHenry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection in a shipwreck...
- Lydia BeckerLydia BeckerLydia Ernestine Becker was a leader in the early British suffrage movement, as well as an amateur scientist with interests in biology and astronomy...
- George BenthamGeorge BenthamGeorge Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...
- Antoinette Brown Blackwell
- Mary Boole
- Heinrich Georg BronnHeinrich Georg BronnHeinrich Georg Bronn was a German geologist and paleontologist.Bronn was born at Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg. Studying at the university of Heidelberg he took his doctor's degree in the faculty of medicine in 1821, and in the following year was appointed professor of natural history...
- Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame de CandolleAlphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame de CandolleAlphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame de Candolle , was a French-Swiss botanist, the son of the Swiss botanist A. P. de Candolle....
- William Benjamin CarpenterWilliam Benjamin CarpenterWilliam Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.-Life:...
- Frances Power CobbeFrances Power CobbeFrances Power Cobbe was an Irish writer, social reformer, and suffragist. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898, and was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.Frances was...
- Walter Drawbridge Crick, grandfather of Francis CrickFrancis CrickFrancis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
- Thomas Davidson
- Anton DohrnAnton DohrnFelix Anton Dohrn was a prominent German Darwinist and the founder and first director of the Stazione Zoologica, Naples, Italy.-Family history:...
- Franciscus DondersFranciscus Donders-External links:* B. Theunissen. , F.C. Donders: turning refracting into science, @ History of science and scholarship in the Netherlands.* in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science* P. Eling, , Geneeskundige en fysioloog....
- George EliotGeorge EliotMary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
- Hugh FalconerHugh FalconerHugh Falconer MD FRS was a Scottish geologist, botanist, palaeontologist and paleoanthropologist. He studied the flora, fauna and geology of India, Assam and Burma, and was the first to suggest the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium...
- Frederic William FarrarFrederic William FarrarFrederic William Farrar was a cleric of the Church of England .Farrar was born in Bombay, India and educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man, King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal for poetry in 1852...
- Thomas Farrer, 1st Baron FarrerThomas Farrer, 1st Baron FarrerThomas Henry Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer was an English civil servant and statistician.Farrer was the son of Thomas Farrer, a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Born in London, he was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1840...
- John Fiske
- Robert FitzRoyRobert FitzRoyVice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality...
- Auguste-Henri ForelAuguste-Henri ForelAuguste-Henri Forel was a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist and psychiatrist, notable for his investigations into the structure of the human brain and that of ants. For example, he is considered a co-founder of the neuron theory...
- Francis GaltonFrancis GaltonSir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
*
- Jean Albert GaudryJean Albert GaudryJean Albert Gaudry , French geologist and palaeontologist, was born at St Germain-en-Laye, and was educated at the college Stanislas....
- James GeikieJames GeikieJames Geikie was a Scottish geologist.He was born in Edinburgh, the son of James Stuart Geikie and younger brother of Sir Archibald Geikie...
- Joseph Henry GilbertJoseph Henry GilbertSir Joseph Henry Gilbert was an English chemist, noteworthy for his long career spent improving the methods of practical agriculture. He was a fellow of the Royal Society.-Life:...
- Asa GrayAsa Gray-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
* - William Robert GroveWilliam Robert GroveSir William Robert Grove PC QC FRS was a judge and physical scientist. He anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy, and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology.-Early life:...
- Julius von HaastJulius von HaastSir Johann Franz "Julius" von Haast was a German geologist. He founded Canterbury Museum at Christchurch.-Biography:...
- Ernst HaeckelErnst HaeckelThe "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
- John Stevens HenslowJohn Stevens HenslowJohn Stevens Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.- Early life :...
* - Joseph Dalton HookerJoseph Dalton HookerSir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
* - Thomas Henry Huxley*
- Thomas JamiesonThomas JamiesonThomas Francis Jamieson was a Scottish scientist most associated with his studies of sea level and glacial isostasy during the Quaternary....
- Leonard JenynsLeonard BlomefieldLeonard Jenyns, later known as Leonard Blomefield was a clergyman-naturalist.He was the youngest son of George Leonard Jenyns and his wife Mary the daughter of Dr. William Heberden . The Jenyns lived on Bottisham Hall property which his father had inherited on the death of his cousin Soame Jenyns...
- Charles KingsleyCharles KingsleyCharles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...
- Ray LankesterRay LankesterSir E. Ray Lankester KCB, FRS was a British zoologist, born in London.An invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum, and was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal...
- John LubbockJohn Lubbock, 1st Baron AveburyJohn Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury PC , FRS , known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was a polymath and Liberal Member of Parliament....
* - Charles LyellCharles LyellSir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
* - Maxwell T. MastersMaxwell T. MastersMaxwell Tylden Masters was an English botanist and taxonomist. He was educated at King's College London and the University of St Andrews...
- Edward S. MorseEdward S. MorseEdward Sylvester Morse was an American zoologist and orientalist.-Early life:Morse was born in Portland, Maine as the son of a Congregationalist preacher. His mother, who did not share her husband's religious beliefs, encouraged her son's interest in the sciences...
- Henry Nottidge MoseleyHenry Nottidge MoseleyHenry Nottidge Moseley, FRS was a British naturalist who sailed on the global scientific expedition of the HMS Challenger in 1872 through 1876....
- Fritz MüllerFritz MüllerJohann Friedrich Theodor Müller , better known as Fritz Müller, and also as Müller-Desterro, was a German biologist and physician who emigrated to southern Brazil, where he lived in and near the German community of Blumenau, Santa Catarina...
- John MurrayJohn Murray (publisher)John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...
- Melchior NeumayrMelchior NeumayrMelchior Neumayr , German palaeontologist, was born at Munich, the son of Max von Neumayr, a Bavarian Minister of State....
- Alfred NewtonAlfred NewtonAlfred Newton FRS was an English zoologist and ornithologist.Newton was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University from 1866 to 1907...
- Richard OwenRichard OwenSir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
- Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de BréauJean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de BréauJean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau was a French naturalist.- Life :He was born at Berthézène, in the commune of Valleraugue , the son of a Protestant farmer. He studied medicine at Strasbourg, where he took the double degree of M.D...
- George Croom RobertsonGeorge Croom RobertsonGeorge Croom Robertson was a Scottish philosopher.He was born in Aberdeen. In 1857 he gained a bursary at Marischal College, and graduated MA in 1861, with the highest honours in classics and philosophy. In the same year he won a Fergusson scholarship of £100 a year for two years, which enabled...
- George RomanesGeorge RomanesGeorge John Romanes FRS was a Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's...
- Sir John SebrightSir John Sebright, 7th BaronetSir John Saunders Sebright, 7th Baronet DL , of Besford, Worcestershire, and Beechwood Park, Hertfordshire, was an English politician and agricultural innovator.-Life:...
- Adam SedgwickAdam SedgwickAdam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
- Frederick SmithFrederick Smith (entomologist)Frederick Smith was a British entomologist.Smith worked in the zoology department of the British Museum from 1849, specialising in the Hymenoptera. In 1875 he was promoted to Assistant Keeper of Zoology...
- Herbert SpencerHerbert SpencerHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....
- Bartholomew SulivanBartholomew SulivanSir Bartholomew James Sulivan was a British sailor and hydrographer, born at Tregew, Flushing, near Falmouth, Cornwall.He was a leading advocate of the value of nautical surveying in relation to naval operations...
- Mary Lua Adelia Davis TreatMary Lua Adelia Davis TreatMary Lua Adelia Davis was a naturalist and correspondent with Charles Darwin....
- Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
- Julia Wedgwood
- August WeismannAugust WeismannFriedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
- William WhewellWilliam WhewellWilliam Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...
- Chauncey WrightChauncey WrightChauncey Wright , American philosopher and mathematician, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts.In 1852 he graduated at Harvard, and became computer to the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. He made his name by contributions on mathematical and physical subjects in the Mathematical Monthly...
Darwin Correspondence Project website
- Darwin Correspondence Project Home Page, University Library, Cambridge. (Accessed 2009-05-07)
- Darwin Correspondence Online Database – The complete texts of all letters from 1821 to 1867 are now freely available online, together with details of all known letters including brief summaries (Accessed 2009-07-11)
Darwin Correspondence Project publications
- Volume 1: 1821-1836 (pub 1985) ISBN 0-521-25587-2
- Volume 2: 1837-1843 (pub 1986) ISBN 0-521-25588-0
- Volume 3: 1844-1846 (pub 1987) ISBN 0-521-25589-9
- Volume 4: 1847-1850 (pub 1988) ISBN 0-521-25590-2
- Volume 5: 1851-1855 (pub 1989) ISBN 0-521-25591-0
- Volume 6: 1856-1857 (pub 1990) ISBN 0-521-25586-4
- Volume 7: 1858-1859 (pub 1991) ISBN 0-521-38564-4
- Volume 8: 1860 (pub 1993) ISBN 0-521-44241-9
- Volume 9: 1861 (pub 1994) ISBN 0-521-45156-6
- Volume 10: 1862 (pub 1997) ISBN 0-521-59032-9
- Volume 11: 1863 (pub 1999) ISBN 0-521-59033-7
- Volume 12: 1864 (pub 2001) ISBN 0-521-59034-5
- Volume 13: 1865 (pub 2003) ISBN 0-521-82413-3
- Volume 14: 1866 (pub 2004) ISBN 0-521-84459-2
- Volume 15: 1867 (pub 2005) ISBN 0-521-85931-X
- Volume 16 pt i: 1868 (pub 2008) ISBN 978-0-521-88195-1
- Volume 16 pt ii: 1868 (pub 2008) ISBN 978-0-521-88196-8
- Volume 17: 1869 (pub 2009) ISBN 978-0-521-19030-5
- Further volumes are anticipated (to about 30 volumes in total)
Selections of letters published by the Correspondence Project include:
- Origins: Charles Darwin's Selected Letters, 1825–1859 ISBN 978-0-521-89862-1
- Evolution: Charles Darwin's Selected Letters, 1860–1870 ISBN 978-0-521-87412-0
- Charles Darwin: The Beagle Letters ISBN 978-0-521-89838-6 (all the letters to and from Darwin during the voyage)
Early editions of Darwin's letters
- Letters on Geology The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
- Life and Letters and Autobiography The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
- More Letters The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
- Letter on Vivisection The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online