ALS signed “Ch. Darwin,” one page, 5 x 7.75, Down, Beckenham, Kent letterhead, January 9, 1873. Neatly penned handwritten letter to an unidentified gentleman, who had requested Darwin to sign some sort of petition or document, in full: “I have had much pleasure in signing the enclosed, with every word of which I fully agree.” In very good to fine condition, with light corner creasing, and scattered foxing.
According to the Darwin Correspondence Project (D.C.P.) based at Cambridge library, within which this letter is cataloged as no. 8728F, the year 1873 was unequivocally Darwin’s busiest as a man of letters, having written and sent some 282 missives. Although the referenced enclosure is not present, it’s posited that it may have been a formal letter concerning the national herbaria, which was signed by Darwin and 53 others and sent to the First Lord of the Treasury, William Ewart Gladstone. The letter, which was penned with a good sense of urgency, presents a list of reasons to move the herbarium at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew to the new Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
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