What Letters Are Available on the Darwin Correspondence Project?

The Darwin Correspondence Project hosts full texts of more than 12,000 letters written by and to Charles Darwin, plus information on roughly 3,000 more. Complete transcripts of all known letters Darwin wrote and received are available up to the year 1878. If your research or reading needs letters from 1879 onward, or full text for the ~3,000 letters that currently have only summary information, this site will not yet meet that need.

What the collection covers

The site is built around Darwin's correspondence as a two-way record: it includes letters he wrote and letters he received. That matters if you are tracing a scientific exchange rather than just Darwin's side of it, because replies from correspondents such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Joseph Hooker, or Asa Gray are part of the same archive.

Two tiers of material exist:

The full-text coverage runs through 1878. Letters after that date are not yet represented as complete transcripts.

How to check whether a specific letter is there

1. Open the site's search form (listed on the homepage as "Search form").
2. Enter a correspondent name, a date range, or a phrase you expect in the letter.
3. Read the result type: a full transcript returns the letter text; an information-only entry returns catalogue-style details without the body.
4. If you need the original manuscript rather than the transcript, note the repository reference in the entry and follow it up with that archive directly.

The expected result of step 2–3 is that you can tell within one search whether your letter falls in the 12,000-transcript group or the 3,000-summary group.

Other entry points on the site

Beyond the search form, the homepage surfaces several routes that help you locate letters by context rather than by keyword:

• Meet the correspondents — browse by the people Darwin exchanged letters with.
• Darwin's letters: a timeline — place letters in chronological sequence.
• Darwin for Schools — a teaching-oriented entry point if you are using the letters in a classroom.
• About Darwin sections (family life, the Beagle voyage, Origin of Species, health, portraits) — background that helps you interpret what a letter is responding to.

Common sticking points

• Assuming every letter has full text. The 3,000 information-only entries are the main trap; a search hit does not guarantee a transcript.
• Searching past 1878 for full text. Transcript coverage stops there, so late-life correspondence may appear only as a record or not at all.
• Expecting modernised spelling. These are transcripts of nineteenth-century letters; quotations should be checked against the transcript rather than paraphrased from memory.
• Confusing the letter archive with Darwin's published works. The site is a correspondence resource; for Origin and other publications, use the dedicated sections it links to.

If your question is about Darwin's own words in a letter dated 1878 or earlier, the site is likely to have the full text. If it concerns his final years or a letter known only by summary, plan to consult the holding archive instead.