To Asa Gray   28 October 1876

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Oct. 28th. 76

My dear Gray

I send by this post all the clean sheets as yet printed & I hope to send the remainder within a fortnight.1 Please observe that the 6 first chapters are not readable, & the 6 last very dull. Still I believe that the results are valuable. If you review the book, I shall be very curious to see what you think of it, for I care more for your judgment than for that of almost anyone else.2

I know also that you will speak the truth, whether you approve or disapprove.

Very few will take the trouble to read the book, & I do not expect you to read the whole, but I hope you will read the latter chapters.— Messrs. Appleton will bring it out in America, & my Orchid book, which I am now correcting the sheets of, as it has been almost remodelled.—3

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

I am so sick of correcting the press & licking my horrid bad style into intelligible English.—

1
Gray had requested copies of the proof-sheets of Cross and self fertilisation (see letter from Asa Gray, 12 October 1876).
2
Gray’s review appeared in the American Journal of Science 3d ser. 13 (1877): 125–41.
3
Cross and self fertilisation US ed. and Orchids 2d US ed. were published by D. Appleton & Co.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 6] after del ‘other’
1.5 for] interl
2.1 that] interl
3.2 read] interl
3.3 in America,] interl
5.1 intelligible] after del illeg

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10656,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10656