Book review: ‘The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 24 • 1876 plus supplement (1838–1875)’

The twenty-fourth volume of Charles Darwin’s correspondence comprises all the surviving letters both from and to Darwin from the year 1876, plus a supplement of letters from earlier years that came to light after publication of the previous volumes.

During 1876, Darwin published the sixth and final edition of The Origin of Species (dropping the word ‘On’ from the title). He also published The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, and the second edition of On The Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects.

Highlights from Darwin’s correspondence in this volume include:

• A religious correspondent claiming to ‘confute’ Darwin’s work. (He also claims to have cures for lunacy, epilepsy, rheumatism, consumption, lung distemper, and foot and mouth disease.)
• Darwin, in mock triumph, reporting his current backgammon victories’ tally against his wife.
• Darwin’s son William sending his father some cigarettes.
• Darwin sending his friend the physicist John Tyndall and his fiancée a teapot as a wedding gift.
• Darwin explaining that the term ‘survival of the fittest’ was coined by Herbert Spencer, but that he finds ‘natural selection’ a more convenient term.
• A letter from a Hebrew scholar quoting holy texts in support of Darwinian theory.
• A correspondent sending report of a supposed ‘missing link’ found in Canada, and of a destitute gold-digger who possesses a letter from Darwin. (Darwin is sceptical of the missing link, but remembers the gold-digger, ‘one of the oddest creatures I ever saw in my life’, turning up at his house.)
• American botanist and entomologist Mary Treat expressing astonishment at discovering a beautiful water lily apparently overlooked by botanists. (She later reports it had previously been depicted in Audubon’s famous book Birds of America, but that botanists had thought it to be an artistic fantasy.)
• Darwin taking great exception to recent Irish correspondent James Torbitt’s proposed advertisement quoting Darwin in support of his scheme to develop blight-resistant potatoes.
• Darwin reporting having been shown Edward Frankland’s pet bullfinch eating the ovules of a Primula. (For more on this topic, see Friends of Charles Darwin newsletter No. 20.)
• Darwin’s son Francis describing he and his wife having been practising ‘dab[bing] down ones fingers’ (i.e. typing) on a ‘dummy printing machine’ (typewriter) in advance of the delivery of the real thing.
• Darwin reporting having visited ‘the Lewes’s’ (i.e. George Henry Lewes and his common-law wife, Marian Evans, the novelist George Eliot).
• Darwin’s letter to the journal Nature on squirrels eating cherry blossom.
• A Darwin correspondent speculating that the human penis is specially adapted for face-to-face copulation.
• Darwin providing feedback (part 1, part 2) to his friend Alfred Russel Wallace on his new book, The Geographical Distribution of Animals. Darwin is greatly impressed with the book, only disagreeing on a couple of points which the two had previously agreed to disagree about.
• Joseph Dalton Hooker struggling to devise a suitable inscription for Charles Lyell’s grave in Westminster Abbey, and Darwin sending some suggestions (which were not used).
• The recently widowed Joseph Dalton Hooker announcing the date of his forthcoming marriage (to the widow Lady Jardine).
• Darwin on the evolution of music and a sense of the sublime.
• Darwin breaking the news of the death, a few days after she gave birth to his first grandchild, of his daughter-in-law, Amy, wife of his son Francis.
• George Romanes commenting on the exposure of a fake medium who was still being defended by Alfred Russel Wallace.
• Darwin explaining he is not disappointed with the reported views of a lecturer who accepts the idea evolution, but who sees the way in which it takes place as obscure, saying, “as long as a man believes in evolution biology will progress, & it signifies comparatively little whether he admits natural selection & thus gains some light on the method, or remains in utter darkness”.
• A correspondent suggesting eagles and kites manage to soar by heating air within their hollow bones, “and thus become an animated balloon”. He goes on to suggest they expel the air backwards to propel them forwards. (Sadly, Darwin’s response does not survive.)
• William Darwin sending his father “one of the most delightful inventions of the age”: a knitted cardigan.
• Darwin’s daughter Henrietta Litchfield discouraging her father from publishing religious views.

As with all the volumes in this series, this book is really aimed at people with a serious interest in Charles Darwin. As with all the other volumes, every letter is annotated with meticulously researched footnotes explaining its context and references. The series as a whole is a masterpiece of scholarship.