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To John Murray   3 June [1871]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

June 3d

My dear Mr. Murray

I have no doubt Mr Cooke has taken much trouble about the photo-printing, & I am sure that I am much obliged to him.2

With respect to the Origin, I am rather disappointed about the price viz 7s. 6d.— Something was said of 6s & I thought this rather high for a book with no illustrations.3 Pray reconsider the subject, & think whether you could not go in for a large sale. I shd in that case work with more heart on the new Edit. I have been told on authority which I can trust that in Lancashire, workmen club together to buy the Origin.4

Please send me clean sheets of the last Edit.5 & then in a week or two I will go to work—; & Clowes6 can print, whenever he likes, & I will have only the corrected sheets sent to me in proof. In one part I shall have to alter heavily.—7

I do not suppose that there is a chance of my Expression book being done this autumn, as I daresay the Origin will take me six weeks or more.—8

Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Murray, 31 May [1871].
3
See letter from John Murray, 31 May [1871] and n. 4. No correspondence has been found suggesting a price of 6s. for a cheap edition of Origin, but CD may have visited Murray while he was in London in April and discussed the matter then. Origin 6th ed. was sold for 7s. 6d. (Publishers’ Circular, 1 March 1872, p. 143).
6
William Clowes & Sons were printers to John Murray.
7
CD refers to a substantially new chapter on objections to the theory of natural selection (Origin 6th ed., pp. 168–204). CD hoped to answer many of the criticisms made against him by St George Jackson Mivart in Mivart 1871 (see letter to A. R. Wallace, 9 July [1871]).
8
CD began working on the sixth edition of Origin on 18 June 1871 and finished the manuscript version on 29 October 1871 (see ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). Expression was published in November 1872 (Freeman 1977).

Bibliography

Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.

Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.

Origin 5th ed.: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 5th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1869.

Origin 6th ed.: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 6th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

Summary

Is disappointed at high price, 7s 6d, being considered for the cheap edition of the Origin [6th ed.]. Has been told that, in Lancashire, workmen club together to buy the Origin.

Little chance that Expression will be done this autumn.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-7798
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Murray
Sent from
Down
Source of text
National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms. 42152 ff. 246–7)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7798,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7798.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19

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