Ɛpsilon

From R. F. Charles   9 June 1880

City of London School | Milk St. | Cheapside | E.C.

June 9th. 1880

Dear Sir,

I venture to ask your permission to use some extracts from the book “a Naturalist’s Voyage round the World” in a series of English reading-books for schools that I am now bringing out. I ought to say that my publishers some time since asked Mr. Murray for permission to print these extracts and others by other writers and he refused to allow extracts from any book published by him.1

As I have no reason to suppose that he referred the matter to you I venture to ask if you will help me. The books are merely school “Readers” and are to be called “The Model Reading-books.”— (Publishers—Messrs. Relfe & Co)2

The extracts I have marked are

1. pp. 450–51. “a Corrobery or native dance”.—

2. p.p. 204–209. “Tierra del Fuego”.—

3. p.p. 151–154. “Horsemanship of the Gauchos.”—3

Should you be able to grant my request I shall feel very much obliged, and of course will take care to see that the extracts are properly printed and acknowleged.4

Trusting that you will excuse the liberty I am taking

Believe me | Yours faithfully | R. F. Charles.

Charles Darwin Esq.

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘answered’ pencil
1
John Murray was CD’s publisher; ‘Naturalist’s voyage round the world’ is the spine title of Journal of researches (1860).
2
The model reading books (Charles ed. 1880–3) were published by Relfe Brothers.
3
The extracts appeared in Charles ed. 1880–3, 5: 10–11; 6: 228–35 (‘Narrative passages’ section), and 72–7 (‘Passages chiefly descriptive’ section), respectively.
4
In Charles ed. 1880–3, 5: 7 and 6: 8, ‘Mr Darwin’ was thanked for his permission to use the extracts.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12627,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12627