From J. V. Carus   21 December 1875

Leipzig,

Decbr. 21. 1875.

My dear Sir,

I have just finished the “Insectivorous Plants”.1 There were some misprints, the list of which I send you here2

p. 95. l. 4. read 110 instead of 120.3

" 283. l. 1. " 1 gr. to 12 oz. " " “of 2 oz.”4

" 288 l. 16. " 712000 of an inch (.0148mm) " " of 712000 of an inch. (.0148mm)5

" 301. footnote " Kirby and Spence instead of Spencer.6

" 374. l. 19. for 1,778 read 17,78.7

" 375. l. 12 from bottom, for “following” read “present.”8

" 395. l. 6. of the contents: for observation read observations.9

" 400. l. 6 from bottom for fig. 18. read fig 19.10

" 446 l. 9. from bottom, perhaps it would be better to repeat the words “of an inch” after “1536”.11

I shall begin the Climbing Plants very soon.12 I followed your advice to get some help during the last months already. My eldest daughter, who was with me in England and afterwards alone, translated almost the fourth part of the Insectivorous.13 I looked at her work and read it carefully over, correcting it etc, and then she wrote it out again, so that I am absolutely sure about every word and figure

We have great difficulties to get a copy of your Geological Observations, both on South America and on Volcanic Islands. Herr Koch tried to find one and so did I for the last twelve months. And yet we must think of bringing them not too late for the edition of the “Opera omnia”.14 To the geological section of these also two papers belong, on the Ice-action in the S. Hemisphere and on the great Earthquake in Chile. In the case that you have a copy of each of them to spare, you would oblige me exceedingly, as the public libraries cannot spare whole Volumes of Transactions as long as I should want them for translation.15

I am happy to say that my health is much better again,16 and I should be exceedingly to hear the same from you

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy new year I am | My dear Sir | Ever yours sincerely | J. Victor Carus

CD annotations

2.1 p. 95.... 120.] tick added pencil; tick added red crayon; ‘E.’ added pencil
3.1 " 283. … 2 oz.”] tick added pencil; ‘E.’ added pencil
4.1 " 288 … (.0148mm)] del pencil; ‘O’ added pencil
5.1 " 301. … Spencer.] del pencil; ‘W’ added pencil; tick added red crayon
6.1 " 374. … 17,78.] tick added pencil; ‘E.’ added pencil
7.1 " 375. … “present.”] tick added red crayon; ‘this &’ added after ‘for’ red crayon
8.1 " 395. … observations.] ‘E’ added pencil
9.1 " 400. … 19.] ‘E’ added pencil
10.1 " 446 …“1536”. 10.2] del pencil
12.1 We have … omnia”. 12.4] ‘Geolog. Observs.’ blue crayon
12.4 To the geological] after opening square bracket blue crayon
12.4 To the … Chile. 12.6] ‘Glen Roy’17 blue crayon
13.1 I am … from you 13.2] double scored blue crayon
Top of letter: ‘I have asked for Errata to be appended to’18 blue crayon
1
Carus was translating Insectivorous plants into German (Carus trans. 1876a; see letter from J. V. Carus, 28 June 1875).
2
Carus refers to errors in the English edition of Insectivorous plants, which had been published on 2 July 1875 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). His corrections were not incorporated into the text until the second edition of Insectivorous plants was published in 1888, but several of them were listed on an errata slip that was attached to the remaining unsold copies of the third thousand and to all copies of the fourth thousand (see nn. 3–11, below).
3
Instead of changing the measurement in inches from 120 to 110 as Carus suggested, the errata slip corrected the equivalent millimetre measurement, giving ‘1.27 mm’ in place of ‘2.54 mm’.
4
In the second thousand of Insectivorous plants, the text had already been corrected to read ‘1 gr. to 2 oz.’ On the errata slip attached to the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies, this was further corrected to ‘2 gr. to 1 oz.’
5
This correction had already been made in the second thousand printing of Insectivorous plants.
6
This correction does not appear on the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies, but it was made in Insectivorous plants 2d ed., p. 243. The reference was to the first volume of the third edition of William Kirby and William Spence’s Introduction to entomology (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1818). Volume 1 of the third edition (1818), volume 2 of the second edition (1818), and volumes 3 and 4 from the first edition (1826), are in the Darwin Library–CUL.
7
The correction was listed on the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies of Insectivorous plants.
8
Carus had spotted an error, but his recommended change was not what CD had intended. Instead, the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies of Insectivorous plants corrected ‘the following’ to ‘this and the following’.
9
This correction appeared on the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies of Insectivorous plants.
10
This correction appeared on the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies of Insectivorous plants.
11
This correction was made in Insectivorous plants 2d ed., p. 361. It did not appear on the errata slip inserted into the unsold third and all the fourth thousand copies of Insectivorous plants.
12
CD had sent proof-sheets of Climbing plants 2d ed. to Carus in October (see letter to J. V. Carus, 14 October [1875]); the German translation (Carus trans. 1876b) was published in 1876.
13
Agnes Marie Elisabeth Carus’s help is not acknowledged in Carus trans. 1876a.
14
Eduard Koch, the head of E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, was publishing a collected edition of CD’s works in German. The original publisher, Smith, Elder & Co., decided to bring out new editions of South America and Volcanic islands in a single volume in 1876 (Geological observations 2d ed.); Carus used this to prepare his translations. The German translations of Volcanic islands 2d ed. (Carus trans. 1877a) and South America (Carus trans. 1878b) appeared in volumes eleven and twelve of the collected works.
15
German translations of CD’s papers ‘Distribution of the erratic boulders’ and ‘Volcanic phenomena and the formation of mountain chains’, both of which were published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, were included in volume twelve of the collected works (Carus trans. 1878c).
16
Carus had been suffering from liver and bowel problems (see letter from J. V. Carus, 20 November 1875).
17
CD wrote this to remind himself to ask Carus not to translate ‘Parallel roads of Glen Roy’ (see letter to J. V. Carus, 25 December 1875).
18
CD requested that the corrections be made to the forthcoming French edition of Insectivorous plants (see letter to C.-F. Reinwald, 26 December 1875) and appended to unsold copies of the English edition (see letter to J. V. Carus, 25 December 1875).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10315,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10315