Charles Darwin Letters
In 1972, Florence Stecher, wife of Dr. Robert M. Stecher, donated a collection
of Darwin letters to the Cleveland Medical Library Association.
Dr. Stecher had been an informed collector of Darwin books and
manuscripts, along with the writings of other naturalists. The
collection contains 179 letters between Darwin and his contemporaries,
comprising a prime source for understanding the scientific and
intellectual network of which he was a central part.
The two principal groups are the Darwin-Innes correspondence and the Darwin-Bates
letters. The correspondence of Charles Darwin and the Reverend
J. Brodie Innes covers a period of 35 years, from 1848 until Darwin's
death, and is that of close personal friends discussing the trials
and triumphs of family life, Darwin's illness and the health of
his children. There are also scientific discussions prompted by
the observations of Innes as an amateur naturalist, as well as
comments on both sides about Darwin's publications.
The Darwin-Bates correspondence began in 1860, a year after the
release of Darwin's
Origin of Species, and continued until Darwin's death in 1882.
Bates was a young and obscure entomologist who had returned from
an eleven year experience in the Amazon, which Darwin had visited
nearly thirty years before. Bates wrote frequently to Darwin asking
for advice. Darwin wrote to Bates asking for information about
primitive peoples, climate, plants, animals, and insects, to be
used in his research.
The letters of Charles Darwin, including those in the Stecher collection,
have been published in two separate works:
A Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821-1882
(New York
& London, Garland Publishing Inc., 1985) A major effort has been
made by Cambridge University and the American Council of Learned
Societies to locate and register the extant correspondence of
Charles Darwin. As a result, many letters have been brought together
thus filling in gaps and making sense out of various situations
and events. Although the CALENDAR does not reproduce the entire
letter, a short and helpful synopsis is given. This is available online
at: http://darwin.lib.cam.ac.uk/
The Correspondence of Charles Darwin
(Cambridge, etc., Cambridge University
Press, 1985- ). In this work, Darwin's letters are printed in
their entirety. At the present time 12 volumes have been printed.
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