Carl Linnaeus 1707-1778

Youth and early education, 1707-1727
Lund 1727-1728
Uppsala 1728-1731
Friendship with Pehr Artedi 1729-1735
Lapland journey 1732
Further student years at Uppsala 1733-1735
Years abroad, mostly in Holland 1735-1738
Medical practice 1738-1741
Professorship at Uppsala 1741-1772
Decline and death 1772-1778
Achievements
Linnaean binomial nomenclature
The correspondence of Carl Linnaeus

Editorial team
Editorial policy

Youth and early education, 1707-1727

In 1714 aged seven he was sent for schooling at Växjö, where he remained until 1727. He did not prove an apt and brilliant pupil in a school intended mostly for would-be clergymen and state officials. According to a contemporary document summarised by Telemak Fredbärj in 1973, lessons at Växjö began at 6 a.m. after prayers and hymn-singing and ended at 5 p.m.; of the lessons each week, seventeen were devoted to Latin, fourteen to theology and ethics, four to Greek and nine to mathematics, physics and logic together. Linnaeus found this dry fare little to his taste but it gave him a good grounding in Latin, without which he could never have reached the learned world of Europe in later years. His parents hoped he would become a clergyman; his teachers thought otherwise; they said he was most deficient in the subjects such as Greek, theology and eloquence most needed for a priest and he himself had no inclination that way. Fortunately indeed for Linnaeus and for posterity a distinguished local doctor Johan Stensson Rothman (1684-1762), while agreeing that Linnaeus could never become a priest, assured his parents that he would become a famous doctor and gave him personal instruction in botany and the principles of medicine. Rothman introduced him moreover to the sexuality of plants as expounded in Sébastien Vaillant’s Sermo de structura florum (1717), which had a dramatic effect on his adolescent imagination by revealing that sex comparable to that of human beings existed in flowers. Linnaeus took the comparison a long way, to the extent indeed of seeing the common marigold (Calendula officinalis) as a plant practising ‘necessary polygamy’ with ‘the married females barren, the concubines fertile’; in other words, the ray florets of the flower head produced seeds but the disc florets did not. It led him to study flowers intimately, examining hundreds to discover how they managed their sexual affairs and procreation. He admitted in 1738 that ‘their singular structure and extraordinary function attracted my mind to enquire what Nature had hidden in them. They commended themselves by the duty they perform since the propagation of plants rests entirely on them alone’. These observations, transformed into human terms, formed the basis of his so-called ‘Sexual System’ of classifying plants into major groups based on the numbers of their genital organs, of their stamens and stigmas.

Lund 1727-1728

Uppsala 1728-1731

Friendship with Pehr Artedi 1729-1735

Lapland journey 1732

Linnaeus’s subsequent career falls into five periods, the main events of which may be summarised chronologically as follows:

Further student years at Uppsala 1733-1735

Years abroad, mostly in Holland 1735-1738

Medical practice 1738-1741

Professorship at Uppsala 1741-1772

Decline and death 1772-1778

Achievements

This innovation in nomenclature has proved Linnaeus’s most lasting, influential and important contribution to biology but many of his contemporaries received neither this nor his classification with joy. They found his “sexual system” repugnant and unnatural: they objected strongly to his changing of well-established generic names and considered his binomial nomenclature for species unnecessary and uninformative, although they welcomed and accepted his diagnostic phrase-names. Even so well-disposed and kindly a correspondent as the Quaker merchant Peter Collinson gently reprimanded him on 20 April 1754: “My dear friend, we that admire you are much concerned that you should perplex the delightful science of Botany with changing names that have been well received, and adding new names quite unknown to us. Thus, Botany, which was a pleasant study and attainable by most men, is now become, by alterations and new names, the study of a man’s life, and none now but real professors can pretend to attain it. As I love you, I tell you our sentiments.”

Linnaeus’s nomenclatural preoccupation may have dominated his activities but it was far from excluding others. Thus his dissertations, collected in Amoenitates academicae, cover a wide range of subjects. His Philosophia botanica (1751) helped to standardise botanical taxonomic procedure and terminology: many terms were given their present application by Linnaeus. He took from pharmacy the alchemical signs for man (Mars, iron), and woman (Venus, copper) and used them as male and female symbols.

He maintained a very extensive correspondence with naturalists all over Europe and students came to him and Nils Rosén von Rosenstein at Uppsala from many countries as they had earlier gone to Boerhaave at Leiden. Twenty-three of Linnaeus’s students themselves became professors and thus spread his methods widely. The Linnaean classification of plants and animals provided a framework of knowledge into which information about hitherto unknown organisms could be fitted. Thus it provided a stimulus for further investigation and led his students to travel to remote lands for natural history purposes. A number of these Linnaean ‘apostles’, Anders Berlin, Pehr Forsskål, Fredrik Hasselquist, Pehr Löfling and Christopher Tärnström, alas, died in the cause of science far from home, but others, including Pehr Kalm and Carl Peter Thunberg, returned laden with specimens for research. Two of them, Daniel Solander and Anders Sparrman, even sailed round the world with Captain James Cook and contributed substantially to the scientific results of his first and second global voyages.

Linnaean binomial nomenclature

The correspondence of Carl Linnaeus

Nobody but Linnaeus could have been more aware of the scientific value of his own correspondence. The correspondents, according to himself, “were the most learned and curious in Europe”, who informed Linnaeus of new discoveries and sent him letters and books. In the third of his autobiographies from the 1760’s he listed seventy-one correspondents from Russia and Turkey in the east to America in the west.

In the years to come the number of letters and correspondents continued to grow. When Linnaeus died in 1778 more than 170 Swedish and 400 foreign correspondents had written to him. Over three thousands letters had been sent to him from Europe, America, Asia and Africa by colleagues and also by admirers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau and particularily by his own students who reported to their professor from their travels all over the world.

After Linnaeus’s death the correspondence, his manuscripts, the books and the herbarium remained in the possession of the family. Linnaeus’s son, Carl Linnaeus the Younger, who succeeded his father as professor in botany at the University of Uppsala, added his own correspondence, books and specimens to those of his father. Linnaeus the Younger died in 1783 leaving everything to his mother, Sara Lisa Moraea, Carl von Linné’s widow, who needed money to provide dowries for her four daughters, decided to sell the collections. As is well known to the fellows of the Linnaean Society of London, being unable to find a Swedish buyer who could pay the required 1000 guineas sterling, Linnaeus’s widow sold the Linnaean collections in 1784 to the young English medical student and naturalist James Edward Smith.

In 1829, after Smith’s death, the collections were transferred to the Linnaean Society of London, which had been founded by Smith and other naturalists in London in 1788. The Linnaean correspondence together with the rest of Linnaeus’s manuscripts, the herbarium and the greater part of his library still remain there.

Very little of his correspondence was published during his lifetime. In Epistolarum ab eruditis viris ad Alb. Hallerum scriptarum pars 1 (Bern 1773) parts of the correspondence with Albrecht von Haller were printed.

James Edward Smith published a selection of the letters in 1821, in two volumes, A selection of the correspondence of Linnaeus and other naturalists from the original manuscripts (London 1821). From the 1820’s and onwards other parts of the correspondence were edited separately. In 1829 the correspondence with Alexander Garden appeared, in 1830 the one with Johannes and Nicolaus Laurentius Burman, in 1841 with Nicolaus Jacquin, in 1851 with Bernard Jussieu, in 1860 with François Boissier de Sauvages de la Croix, 1861 with Johann Georg Gmelin and in 1878-1880 265 letter to and from Swedes, etc. were published.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the interest in Linnaeus became even more intensive than it had been before. The image of Linnaeus as one of the national heroes in Sweden became common. In 1885 the Swedish botanist, Ewald Ährling, published the first printed catalogue of the Linnaean correspondence. In the preface Ährling says ‘that even in Sweden it had been commonly recognised that the correspondence of great men demands special attention’. In 1878-1879 Ährling had taken the initiative to publish Linnaeus’s correspondence with Swedes.

It was not until the first decade of the twentieth century the thought of publishing the complete correspondence emerged again. In 1907, 200 years after the birth of Linnaeus, it was announced by the Swedish Parliament that the Linnaean letters were to be published in its entirety. Within a period of 36 years about a fourth of the correspondence was published in Bref och skrifvelser till och från Carl von Linné (Stockholm & Uppsala 1907-1943). For different reasons the letters ceased to come out after 1943.

Fifty years later a new initiative was taken by the Swedish Linnaean Society to restart the publication of the Linnaean correspondence. In 1994 the Swedish National Bank through its research foundation agreed to support the project financially. A collaboration between the Swedish Linnaean Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Uppsala University and its library, the Linnaean Society of London and the c18 programme of the Centre international d’étude du XVIIIe siècle of Ferney-Voltaire will hopefully lead to the realisation of Linnaeus’s wish “to make public” all the letters. This time the correspondence will be published in an international edition. All the documents will be published in their original form. The letters written in Latin and in Swedish will be given a short summary in English. Commentaries, biographies, etc. will also be in English.

The first phase of the publishing project started in the summer of 1995 and consists in listing and locating the letters to and from Linnaeus. About 5500 letters have been recorded to date but we expect to find many more. A request for the letters from Linnaeus to his friends and colleagues has been sent out to about 300 libraries all over the world. We are primarily interested in locating such letters and of course, if it is possible, in getting copies from them. We also know that many letters are preserved for the future by interested collectors. If anyone of you, lucky enough to own a manuscript or letter by Linnaeus, reads this, we should be very glad to hear from you. We might be able to provide you with new information about the autograph you own.

A selection of the letters is available for the users of the internet. The letters have been chosen to illustrate different epochs and aspects of Linnaeus’s life and work. The correspondents who come from different countries are either well-known scientist or characters scarcely remembered nowadays.

We should appreciate to know what you think about our project and our way of editing the letters. Send an e-mail to Tomas Anfält.

The correspondence will be published in electronic form, via the internet. We hope to deliver the first twelve years of the Linnaean correspondence (1728-1739) in 1998. Further information about the publication of the Linnaean correspondence can be given by Tomas Anfält, Uppsala University Library, Box 510, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden.

Editorial team

Ann-Mari Jönsson (ann-mari.jonsson@fyto.uu.se)

Eva Nyström (eva.nystrom@idehist.uu.se)

Toon van Houdt (toon.van_houdt@scasss.uu.se)

Editorial policy

The first and chief objective of this edition is to provide complete and authoritative texts of Linnaeus' correspondence. As far as possible the letters are dated, arranged in chronological order and the senders and recipients identified.

Where circumstances allow transcriptions have been made from the original manuscripts. If the manuscript is inaccessible a photocopy or other facsimile is reproduced. Drafts, secondary copies and printed sources have been used when necessary.

The method of transcription employed is adapted to modern principles and techniques of textual editing. Orthography, punctuation and grammar of the original document is preserved so far as the criteria of legibility permits. In cases where there are doubts about spelling, the use of capital letters, punctuation or grammar, editorial corrections may be made. Square brackets enclose conjectural readings and descriptions of any illegible passages.

Where Linnaeus or his correspondents have made alterations in the text, the ultimate version is reproduced and the original readings reproduced in the textual notes.

Paragraphs in the original text are respected. If the author of the letter has indicated the start of a new paragraph by leaving space in the text, it is treated as a new paragraph by the editors.

Marginal additions are transcribed where the editors believe they were intended to be read. The position of such additions is recorded in the textual notes.

The hand-drawn illustrations that occur in the letters are reproduced as faithfully as possible.

Punctuation marking the end of a clause or sentence is occasionally missing in the original texts. In such cases punctuation is inserted without comments by the editors.

Some of the Linnaean letters are known only from entries in catalogues from book and manuscript dealers or references in other published sources. Whatever information those sources provide is reproduced without change.

Every letter available to the editors is always given in full. In many cases the Linnaean correspondence contains memoranda or other documents relevant to the letters. These are summarised.

The format in which the texts are presented is as follows:

1. Order of letters. The letters are arranged in chronological order according to the Gregorian calendar. A letter that can be dated only approximately is placed at the earliest date on which the editors believe it could have been written. Every letter is given a number relating to the year, month and day it was written. If more than one letter was written on the same day, they are arranged alphabetically according to the name of the author.
2. Heading. This gives the name of the sender and recipient of the letter, the place from which it was written and its date.
3. The text. The transcribed text follows as closely as possible the layout of the source although word spacing and line divisions in the running text are not reproduced. Opening salutations and addresses are reproduced respectively at the head and foot of the text. The address is run on as a single paragraph.
4. A short summary in English is provided of the letters which are written in languages other than English, French or German. These summaries cover only the principle content of the letters.
5. Source. The provenance of the texts is indicated under the headings 'Manuscripts' and 'Editions'.
6. Annotation. Notes concerning the state of the texts appear under the heading 'Textual notes' and commentaries on the letters under the heading 'Notes'. Some citations and references in the commentary are based on notes published in Br. o. skr. and Sv. arb. The source is not usually indicated in these cases.
7. Biographical and bibliographical information is provided by hypertext links to separate files.