Ɛpsilon

From R. F. Cooke   28 July 1881

50, Albemarle Street, | W.

July 28. 1881

My dear Sir

Your letter has taken quite by surprise, as we had no idea that you intended to publish your “Worm” volume at this period of the year & we wish to remonstrate with you about doing so.1

The paper has to be made & so have the Stereotypes for America & this has to be done before we can print off any copies.

Again Messrs. Appleton will require to have the plates sometime before we publish, so that they may be able to print off their edition for a simultaneous publication, or nearly so, in both countries.2

This must delay the work here for some 5 or 6 weeks & it will ruin the success of the book to publish then.

Can you not then agree to defer the publication until October, when we shall be able to secure a good start, which will gratify both the author & publisher & please the booksellers.

We propose to print 1000 Copies & ask Messrs. Clowes to keep the type standing.3

With kind compliments | Yours faithfully | Robt. Cooke

Chas. Darwin Esq

1
CD’s letter has not been found. Earthworms had gone to press on 1 May 1881 and was published by John Murray on 10 October 1881 (Freeman 1977).
2
D. Appleton & Co. were CD’s US publishers; they published from stereotypes of the British edition provided by Murray. Simultaneous publication would reduce Appleton’s losses on account of pirated editions.
3
William Clowes & Sons were Murray’s printers.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13255,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13255