PREFACE 



THE Life and Letters of Charles Darwin was 

 published in 1887. Since that date, through 

 the kindness of various correspondents, additional 

 letters have been received ; among them may be men- 

 tioned those written by Mr. Darwin to Mr. Belt, 

 Lady Derby, Hugh Falconer, Mr. Francis Galton, 

 Huxley, Lyell, Mr. John Morley, Max Mailer, Owen, 

 Lord Playfair, John Scott, Thwaites, Sir William 

 Turner, John Jenner Weir. But the material for our 

 work consisted in chief part of a mass of letters which, 

 for want of space or for other reasons, were not printed 

 in the Life and Letters. We would draw particular 

 attention to the correspondence with Sir Joseph 

 Hooker. To him Mr. Darwin wrote with complete 

 freedom, and this has given something of a personal 

 charm to the most technical of his letters. There 

 is also much correspondence, hardly inferior in bio- 

 graphical interest, with Sir Charles Lyell, Fritz 

 Muller, Mr. Huxley, and Mr. Wallace. From this 

 unused material we have been able to compile an 

 almost complete record of Mr. Darwin's work in a 

 series of letters now published for the first time. 

 We have, however, in a few instances, repeated 

 paragraphs, or in one or two cases whole letters, from 

 the Life and Letters, where such repetition seemed 

 necessary for the sake of clearness or continuity. 



