Ɛpsilon

To R. F. Cooke   24 November 1877

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

Nov 24. 1877

My dear Sir,

You wrote to me two or three weeks ago saying that you intended to print off 1,000 copies of the Origin; & I answered you that I had no corrections. I suppose the 2000 copies now spoken of includes the previous 1,000; but I should like to hear how this is.1

With respect to the Fertilisation of Orchids, if Mr Murray thinks fit I shall be glad to have it stereotyped: I enclose one trifling erratum.2

I fear that I cannot agree to Cross-Fertilisation & Forms of Flowers being stereotyped: but before I finally decide I should like to hear how many copies you have of each.3 It is too soon to stereotype Forms of Flowers & I am working so hard that I cannot bear to give up two or three weeks to correct Cross-Fertilisation

It is extremely kind of Messrs Clowes to have kept up the type so long, & I can see that it is a great pity not to take advantage of it for stereotyping

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
See letters from R. F. Cooke, 12 October 1877 and 23 November 1877; Cooke’s letter of two or three weeks ago saying that he intended to print 1000 copies of Origin has not been found, nor has CD’s letter to Cooke saying he had no corrections.
2
See letter from R. F. Cooke, 23 November 1877. For the correction, see the letter from J. V. Carus, 13 June 1877; the correction was made to the revised second edition of Orchids in 1882.
3
Cross and self fertilisation and Forms of flowers. Stereotyping involved preparing preparing a mould of papier-mâché or plaster that could be used to produce a solid plate of type metal, which made the text harder to alter.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11252,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11252