To Ernst Krause   19 August [1879]1

Waterhead Hotel | Coniston, Ambleside

Aug 19th

My dear Sir

I thank you cordially for your letter. It has been a great relief to me, for I feared that you might think that I had treated you shabbily.— I will attend to all your instructions.2 The Preface shall not be printed off until you have seen it, so that it can be altered. My son will make a list of Plants to the best of his power when we return home.—3

I return registered by this Post the German of the ‘History of Evolution’.4

I shall send all the M.S in 2 or 3 days to the Printers. I heartily hope the little book may sell fairly well that there may be some profit to send you, but I am rather doubtful on this head.

In Haste | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

We start for Home on the 26th.5

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Ernst Krause, 16 August 1879.
2
In his letter of 16 August 1879, Krause agreed to CD’s extensive cuts to Krause’s manuscript for Erasmus Darwin.
3
Krause had asked CD not to include a statement that CD had condensed his manuscript in the preface of Erasmus Darwin; see letter from Ernst Krause, 16 August 1879 and n. 10. For the list of plant names that Francis Darwin was going to check, see the letter from Ernst Krause, 16 August 1879 and n. 8.
4
Krause had asked CD to return the German manuscript of the section on the history of evolution before Erasmus Darwin; see letter from Ernst Krause, 16 August 1879 and n. 5.
5
The Darwins returned to Down on 27 August 1879 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Ambleside] before del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’
1.4 will make] above del ‘has made’
1.4 when … home. 1.5] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12198,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12198