Ɛpsilon

To R. F. Cooke   8 November [1880]1

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

Nov. 8th

My dear Sir

It was very kind of you to tell me so soon of the 600 copies: I expected about 200, so that the loss will not be so heavy as I expected.2 Will you be so good as to advise me whether I had not better have 250 copies struck off: for reviews Libraries & 65 presentation copies will dispose of nearly 100 more. What would it cost to have type kept up say for 2 months?

I enclose list of 24 copies to be distributed & please send other 41 copies for foreigners (for N.B I shall want 65 copies cut)3 to me, addressed “Orpington St. S.E R”.—

Please to see about Reviews.— Please insert advertisement by itself twice in Nature.4

Lastly I am sorry to trouble you, but it is right that you should know that the index-maker5 has made the worst index, I believe, ever published, notwithstanding that my son6 & I spent 2 days in correcting it, & this has caused delay. We had to look to fully 13 of references to conjecture what reference meant. The miserable work is chiefly due to ignorance of the matter, but not wholly so, for he scamped his work. For instance under names Lynch & De Vries, instead of looking to see what they had written about the general heading on top of page was copied.7 In no book published by you was there ever so bad an index.—

Once again thanking you cordially for all the trouble which you have taken for me I remain, My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

P.S | Sometime I shd. like to hear how my other books sold.—

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from R. F. Cooke, 5 November 1880.
2
Around 600 copies of Movement in plants had been printed before John Murray’s annual dinner for booksellers (see letter from R. F. Cooke, 5 November 1880). CD had agree to pay for costs not covered by sales of the book (letter to R. F. Cooke, 21 July 1880).
3
For CD’s presentation list for Movement in plants, see Appendix IV. He had originally requested sixty copies with the edges cut (see letter to R. F. Cooke, 16 October 1880).
4
An advertisement for Movement in plants appeared in Nature, 11 November 1880, p. xii.
5
The indexer was Matilda Smith.
7
Richard Irwin Lynch and Hugo de Vries (see for example, Movement in plants, pp. 330 and 340).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.1 so soon] interl
1.3 reviews] after del ‘with’
1.4 65] interl
2.1 for foreigners 2.2] interl
2.2 (for … cut)] square brackets in ms
2.2 (65)] underl red crayon
4.3 , & … delay.] interl
4.5 matter,] above del ‘maker’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12804,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12804