JM will publish [Variation] "coute qui coute", paying CD half the profits.
Thinks he can count on 500 purchases of what he calls the "Pièces Justificatives" of the Origin and will print 750 copies.
His literary friend found it "difficult of digestion".
First portion of Variation MS has been set up. Murray will not decide on number to be printed until he has read a good portion. The agreement applies only to the first edition.
Agrees that new title of Variation is an improvement. Now thinks 1500 copies a safe number to print.
Asks if he should give the clichés of Variation to E. Schweizerbart.
On cost of electrotypes from woodcuts for Variation and price to charge Schweizerbart.
He is unacquainted with Brehm’s work [Thierleben]. Asks that a volume be sent so he can form an opinion on publishing it.
Sends CD cheque for £250, two-thirds of the profits on the sale of 700 copies of Origin, 4th ed.
Hopes he has found a suitable indexer for Variation.
Schweizerbart anxious to get Variation sheets for German translation. Hopes he has found a good indexer in W. S. Dallas.
Sends Dallas’ specimen of indexing [for Variation].
Asks CD’s opinion of likelihood of a hybrid of ass and bull, reported in a MS of a journey to Asia Minor he is reading.
CD’s anxiety about the index [of Variation] will be relieved somewhat when he learns it has at last been set up.
Advance sale of Variation has exhausted the 1500 copies printed. Murray sends note for £300 author’s payment. Wants to print 1250 more immediately.
CD’s letter encourages Murray to proceed with a new edition of Variation; corrections will cost £176.
First notice has appeared in Pall Mall Gazette [7 (1868): 555].
Second issue [of Variation] is ready.
Murray thinks that the Athenæum review was written by J. E. Gray [see 5931].
JM offers a note for 400 guineas as author’s payment on sale of 1250 copies of 2d issue of Variation.
JM sends note for £420.
Asks CD to use his good offices on behalf of William Clowes’s son who is up for election to Athenaeum.
Will be glad to see Miss Wedgwood’s MS on Wesley.
The clichés of Fritz Müller’s work [Für Darwin] have arrived.
JM will send another copy of Variation to B. D. Walsh.
Lost copy of Variation sent to B. D. Walsh has been traced as far as New York.
Gives consent, which is unnecessary because term of protection has expired, for French translation of Journal of researches.
Is at a loss to know how many copies of F. Müller’s Facts and arguments for Darwin to print.
The printer is ready for copy for a new "edition" of Variation. [Presumably another issue. 2d edition did not appear until 1875.]
Has sold 400 copies of Facts and arguments for Darwin. It is a poor time for bookselling.
Last Quarterly Review has best exposition of Darwinism he has met with [A. R. Wallace, "Geological climates, and origin of species", Q. Rev. 126 (1869): 359–94].
Proposes to print 2000 copies of a new [5th] edition of Origin.