Beschreibung:

DARWIN, Charles Robert (1809-1882) Manuscript bibliography with autograph emendations, n.p. [Down House], n.d. [20 July 1870]. Six pages, 207 x 136mm, on a bifolium and a single leaf, in the hand of Emma Darwin with several additions and corrections in the hand of Charles Darwin, with further cancellations and emendations perhaps made under his direction (bifolium hinge split at base). Provenance: With an envelope annotated and initialled by Armand de Quatrefages, in French, testifying to his receipt of the contents on the occasion of Darwin’s candidacy for the Académie des Sciences. Struggling against anti-Darwinism in France: documentary witness to Darwin’s first unsuccessful candidacy for election to the Académie des Sciences, in the hand of Emma Darwin with autograph emendations by Charles Darwin. Comprising a non-chronologically organised bibliography of Darwin’s books and papers published between 1838 and 1869 under the headings ‘General works’, ‘Geological works’, ‘Botanical works’ and ‘Zoological works’, opening with the Journal of Researches [1839] under ‘General Works’, and closing with ‘Planaria [sic] of some marine species […] 1844’ under ‘Zoological works’; On the Origin of Species being assigned to the section headed ‘General Works’. Charles Darwin sent a list of his works published to date to the French biologist Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810-1892) in response to a request for material that Quatrefages might submit in support of Darwin’s election to the Académie des Sciences (see DCP-LETT-7283, a letter from Quatrefages of 18 July 1870). The attempt was unsuccessful: the 11 August 1870 issue of Nature reported on Darwin’s rejection by the French Academy, in spite of a ‘brilliant and able’ speech given by Quatrefages, and Darwin would only be elected as a corresponding member in 1878. The Académie des Sciences held a de facto monopoly over the direction of scientific investigation and dissemination of theory in 19th-century France – there existed no other national forum of comparable importance – and for many years it seemed there was little place in its midst for the English scientist and his evolutionary ideas (for further discussion, see F.G. Henry, ‘Anti-Darwinism in France: Science and the Myth of Nation’, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 27, no 3⁄4 (1999), pp. 290–304). Published as the enclosure to DCP-LETT-7283 [letter not present].