Ɛpsilon

From R. F. Cooke   3 March 1880

50A, Albemarle Street, London. W.

March 3 1880

My dear Sir

As you are aware we printed 1000 copies of the Life of Erasmus Darwin.1 By sales & presentations about 700 copies have been disposed of & we have the residue in our Warehouse & I am sorry to there is little or no demand for it, so that the prospect of a reprint is dismal. There is another matter I wish to mention.

We have still the type standing of your volume on Forms of Plants & Flowers & Messrs. Clowes write to ask if they make distribute it, as they want some of the type.2

We have about 25 copies remaining.

Would you like to send any corrections, have them made & then print off 250 copies & set the type loose?

I trust you have been keeping well this winter.

Yours faithfully | Robt. Cooke

Chas. Darwin Esqr

1
Erasmus Darwin was published in November 1879 (Correspondence vol. 27, letter from Reginald Darwin, 12 November 1879). CD had asked for 1000 copies to be printed but had hoped that more would be required (see ibid., letter to R. F. Cooke, 18 November [1879]).
2
Forms of flowers was published in July 1877 (Freeman 1977). CD had asked for the printers William Clowes & Sons to keep the type up so that he could make corrections (see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to R. F. Cooke, 24 November 1877). A second edition of 1250 copies was published in July 1880, with a few errors corrected in the main text and new material added in a preface (Freeman 1977; Forms of flowers 2d ed., pp. v–xii).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12506,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12506