Source: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7317.xml
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:07:49+00:00

Document:
31 Bloomsbury Str. Bedf. Sq.
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from S. V. Kovalevskaya and V. O. Kovalevsky, 1 September 1870.
CD had offered to borrow books from the Royal Society of London’s library for Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (see letter from S. V. Kovalevskaya and V. O. Kovalevsky, 1 September 1870). The book was Jacobi 1829.
Kovalevsky was undertaking the Russian translation of Descent. He had previously translated Variation (V. O. Kovalevsky trans. 1868–9), obtaining stereotypes of the illustrations from John Murray (see Correspondence vol. 15, letter to V. O. Kovalevsky, 2 May  and letter from V. O. Kovalevsky, [after 24? May 1867]).
The reference is to Alexander Onufrievich Kovalevsky’s work on the embryology of ascidians, which suggested an ancestral link between invertebrates and vertebrates. Vladimir Kovalevsky had sent CD a paper by his brother on this subject in 1867 (A. O. Kovalevsky 1866; Correspondence vol. 15, letter from V. O. Kovalevsky, 15 March 1867). CD cited the paper and described this ‘discovery of extraordinary interest’ in Descent, 1: 205–6.
The reference is to William Benjamin Carpenter (see letter from S. V. Kovalevskaya and V. O. Kovalevsky, 1 September 1870 and n. 5).
Will order the first set of casts from Murray.
Thanks CD for a book for his wife from the Royal Society Library.
His brother [Alexander] is delighted at being referred to in CD’s work [Descent 1: 205].

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