Ɛpsilon

From R. F. Cooke   26 February 1878

50A, Albemarle Street, London. W.

Feby. 26 1878

My dear Sir

We have still some copies remaining of “Cross Fertilization” & have not as yet ordered any copies to be printed off of the revised edition. But of course we must do so soon. How many do you think we may order. We had better now it is revised, stereotype.1

As to “Forms of Flowers” we have still some copies left, but the type stands for your corrections before we stereotype or print any more off.2

It is unfortunate about the “Origin of Species”, but we had not sufficient copies in stock to deliver all we sold at our dinner in Novr., & these delays will sometime happen.3

Yours faithfully | Robt. Cooke

Chas. Darwin Esq

1
CD had sent corrections for a second edition of Cross and self fertilisation in December 1877; see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to R. F. Cooke, 11 December [1877]. CD had agreed that Cross and self fertilisation 2d ed. would be stereotyped and the movable type broken up by the printers; see ibid., letter to John Murray, 28 November 1877.
2
CD had asked for Forms of flowers to be kept in type until he made corrections; see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to R. F. Cooke, 24 November 1877. When a second edition was produced in 1880, the new material was added to the preface (Forms of flowers 2d ed., pp. v–xii).
3
In his letter of 29 November 1877 (Correspondence vol. 25), Cooke told CD that he had sold 570 copies of Origin 6th ed. at John Murray’s November sale dinner and was having another 2000 printed off. Evidently, there had been a delay in producing these copies, as the twentieth thousand of Origin was not published until 1878 (Freeman 1977; see also Correspondence vol. 25, letter from R. F. Cooke, 1 December 1877 and n. 1).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11376,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11376