From R. F. Cooke   3 July 1875

50A, Albemarle Street, London, W.

July 3 1875

My dear Sir

You are to blame. You took such a desponding view of your new work that you made us over cautious & we printed but 1250 Copies, & lo & behold we have sold some 1700 Copies!!!.1

I have ordered Clowes to print off at once 1000 more copies, for fortunately we have kept the type standing.2

If you have detected any errors, let the printers have your corrections as soon as possible.

We have charged Appleton £50 for the Stereotypes, which is the same we did for the Expression, & this is very cheap, as this volume is nearly 3 sheets more.3

What about the enclosed note.4

Yours faithfully | Robt. Cooke

Chas. Darwin Esq

1
CD had warned his publisher, John Murray, that Insectivorous plants might ‘sell very poorly’ (letter to John Murray, 29 April [1875]). See also letter to R. F. Cooke, 29 June [1875].
2
Murray had requested that the printers, William Clowes & Sons, keep the text in type in case further copies were required (letter from John Murray, 1 May [1875]).
3
CD had negotiated the charges for stereotypes of Expression for his US publisher, D. Appleton & Co. (see Correspondence vol. 20, letter to R. F. Cooke, 7 August 1872). Stereotypes were prepared by making a mould of each page of type and using the mould to cast metal printing-plates. In an octavo book, sheets are folded three times to produce sixteen pages; so three extra sheets would produce forty-eight more pages.
4
The enclosure has not been found.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10040,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10040