From W. S. Dallas   28 August 1879

Margate

28 August 1879

My dear Mr Darwin

I thought I would give you time to get a little settled at home before answering your last kind letter, & indeed I don’t know that I have very much to say.—1 Of course as the translation of Krause was made to be used by you as suited you best I can have no just cause of complaint at the suppression of any part of it, & I am only too glad when you give me an opportunity of being of service to you in any way.— The proofs I will do my best to correct & improve, but I shall have to ask you to send me the German original when the proofs come to me as I shall have to consult it in critical cases.— I don’t know whether you are aware that Dr. Krause proposes (or proposed) to publish the whole of his essay in German & requested me to send him the MS. when done with.— Shall I forward it to him with the corrected proofs? for I think it will be better that he should have the proofs after I have been over them.—2

The question of payment had better stand over until after the matter is in type,— my original calculation was made from the printed matter & from the way in which the work has been done I am quite at sea as to quantity,— moreover a great deal of the translation will be useless to you.—3

Believe me | Yours very truly | W. S. Dallas

We return to town on Monday & I shall be at Geol. Soc. from Tuesday next onwards.—4

1
The letter from CD to Dallas has not been found, but see the letter from W. S. Dallas, 18 August 1879.
2
In his letter to CD of 6 August 1879, Dallas said he had sent his translation of the manuscript of Ernst Krause’s part of Erasmus Darwin. In the letter to Ernst Krause, 13 August 1879, CD had proposed to omit a large portion of Krause’s manuscript for the English edition, leaving Krause to include the omitted sections in the German edition (Krause 1880) as he wished. Krause had accepted CD’s proposal and asked whether he should consult Dallas directly to get his original German manuscript back; see letter from Ernst Krause, 16 August 1879.
3
Dallas had based his fee of £10 for the translation on CD’s initial request to translate only Krause’s Kosmos article ‘Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie’ (Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather and forerunner: a contribution to the history of descent theory; Krause 1879a); see letter to W. S. Dallas, 12 March [1879], and letter from W. S. Dallas, 14 March 1879. Krause had then decided to augment his essay and had sent Dallas the manuscript.
4
Dallas was assistant secretary of the Geological Society of London. Monday was 1 September.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12202,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12202