Charles Darwin to Charles Eugene Ferguson. January 12, 1880.

Charles Darwin to Charles Eugene Ferguson, January 12, 1880, Ferguson Mss.

Charles Darwin to Charles Eugene Ferguson, January 12, 1880.

Darwin was not unfailingly generous in his correspondence. When Charles E. Ferguson (1856-1945), an Indianapolis physician and collector of autographs, asked for a list of books on evolution, he shot back a snappy letter, again on letterhead supplied by the South Eastern Railroad. Darwin recommended both his own Descent of Man and a book by his most important German supporter, the biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).

Front:

Jan 12/ 1880

Dear Sir

If you will read Häckels “Evolution of man” — if the Translation has appeared in America, or his Schöpfungsgeschichte — and my Descent of man, I think that you will find reference to everything important. —

Dear Sir
yours faithf[u]lly
Ch. Darwin