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