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Lot 85

DARWIN (CHARLES)
Autograph postcard signed ("C. Darwin"), to an unnamed recipient (evidently a bookseller), Down, 1877 in an album also containing an autograph signed envelope by Dickens, and other material

27 November 2018, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £3,500 inc. premium

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DARWIN (CHARLES)

Autograph postcard signed ("C. Darwin"), to an unnamed recipient (evidently a bookseller), asking him to procure as soon as possible the Bulletin de la Société botanique de France, number 23 (for 1876); the card struck through (no doubt denoting despatch of the order); printed heading 'From Mrs [altered to Mr] C. Darwin, Down. Beckenham'; part of delivery postmark ('[L]ondon E.C... 77'), 1 page, slight dust-staining, laid down, 8vo, Down, 1877, tipped into a late nineteenth century morocco album

Footnotes

The card has been pasted into an album; when (and if) it is lifted, the name of the recipient will no doubt be revealed. The 1876 number of the journal in question contained at least three articles that may have been of interest to Darwin, namely Alphonse de Candolle, 'Sur la désignation de la direction des spires dans les plantes'; Émile Mer, 'Des effets de l'immersion sur les feuilles aériennes'; and Jacques Nicholas Ernst Germain de Saint-Pierre, 'L'evolution de l'espèce végétale'.

The album also includes (on the same page as the Darwin) an autograph signed envelope by Dickens to the Rev James White of Bonechurch, Isle of Wight, postmarked 6 February 1858 (originally enclosing a letter of 5 February, see the Pilgrim Edition); with a fragment by Christina Rossetti and other material.

Additional information

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CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.