Ɛpsilon

To John Murray   15 November 1876

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

Nov 15. 76

My dear Sir,

I am very well satisfied with the sale of my books on the whole.1 I am rejoiced about the Fertilisation as I did not expect that more than 6 or 700 would sell. I never supposed that such special treatises & climbing plants would go on selling. The only very bad point in your list is ‘The Expression of the Emotions’; & I am astonished at this, seeing how largely the book sells in Germany.2 I still believe that in the course of years the copies in hand will go off. Messrs Edwards have greatly improved the heliotypes for the Germany edit3

my dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

P.S | How many copies do you mean to print of the Cross-Fertilisation book   I should think 1500 would be ample

LS

1
Murray’s memorandum of the sale of CD’s main works at his November sale dinner is in DAR 210.11: 5. According to the list, which is dated 10 November 1876, Murray sold 1100 copies of Cross and self fertilisation; 175 of Journal of researches 2d ed.; 550 of Origin 6th ed.; 40 of Variation 2d ed.; 230 of Descent 2d ed.; 5 of Expression; 17 of Insectivorous plants; and 23 of Climbing plants 2d ed.
2
Expression was translated into German by Julius Victor Carus (Carus trans. 1872); a second edition was printed in 1874 (Carus trans. 1874), and a third in 1877 (Carus trans. 1877b). Three thousand copies of the German translation were sold by 1 February 1874 (Correspondence vol. 22, letter from J. V. Carus, 15 March 1874).
3
There is an envelope marked in CD’s hand, ‘Photographs sent to Mr Edwards Nov 1876’, in DAR 53.1: C121. Eduard Koch, Carus’s publisher, had complained about the quality of the heliotype illustrations to Expression (see Correspondence vol. 22, letter from J. V. Carus, 7 July 1874). They were produced by B. J. Edwards & Co. (see letter from B. J. Edwards & Co, 16 February 1876).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10672,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10672