To R. F. Cooke   18 November [1879]1

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

Nov. 18th

My dear Sir

I am very much obliged for Mr Murray’s kind offer, but the compiler (the son of the Noble Garrison) sent me a copy. I told him I know nothing about copyright or whether Mr. Murray wd object to the book being sold in England. In my opinion it wd. serve as an advertisement of my Journal. But I do not at all know whether the Publishers intend to try to sell it in England.2

I was satisfied with the sale of my books at your sale, except of the life of Dr. D. for though my reason told me, as I said to you, that 1000 copies wd be enough to print off, yet I had a secret wish that more wd be ultimately required.3 This, I suppose, is now very improbable, though just possible, if the little book shd. be spoken well of in Reviews.

With many thanks for all your kind assistance | I remain, my dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. P. Garrison, 9 November 1879.
2
CD had received a copy of an American edition of Journal of researches (What Mr. Darwin saw in his voyage round the world; C. R. Darwin 1880), abridged and rearranged for children by Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of the anti-slavery campaigner William Lloyd Garrison (see letter from W. P. Garrison, 9 November 1879). C. R. Darwin 1880 was published in the US by Harper & Brothers. CD’s publisher was John Murray.
3
Murray held a sale dinner each November for the book trade (J. Murray 1908–9, p. 540). CD had suggested printing 1000 copies of Erasmus Darwin in his letter to Cooke of 4 October [1879]. Six hundred copies were sold at the sale dinner; see letter to Ernst Krause, 17 November 1879.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12327,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12327