To John Murray   24 November [1859]

⇒ Ilkley Wells House | Otley, Yorkshire

Nov. 24

My dear Sir

I am astounded at your news of sale.1 I cannot cut up my one copy, for I am incessantly receiving letters with references. Will you send me another copy if possible in sheets, & I will immediately send off half a dozen sheets to Mess rs Clowes, after I have looked them over. Sir C. Lyell & others suggest expansion in many places, but I cannot possibly without books or M.S do this. I have heard of only one blunder & that not my fault.—2

I shd. think the best way would be to let me try, & correct & if I am too slow the Printers must print off a Verbatim copy.

I am infinitely obliged about French Edition.3

About your “note of hand” please do whatever is usual: you can either deduct for my presentation copies (& I thank you sincerely for all the trouble, which you have taken) or I will pay you at once.4

I will begin this evening looking over my copy for corrections. In Haste with hearty thanks.

I do rejoice that you will not have cause to repent of publishing; at one time I was extremely fearful & annoyed at thought that you might repent

In Haste. Yours sincerely & obliged | C. Darwin

Perhaps you had better tell me how soon you want new Edition I am up to very little work.—

1
Murray’s letter has not been found, but see the letter to T. H. Huxley, 24 [November 1859] and n. 1. In a letter written at Shrewsbury late in November 1859, Emma Darwin told William Erasmus Darwin (DAR 210.6): ‘It is a wonderful thing the whole edition selling off at once & Mudie taking 500 copies. Your father says he shall never think small beer of himself again & that candidly he does think it very well written.’ Charles Edward Mudie was the proprietor of ‘Mudie’s select library’, a subscription lending library that began in London in 1842 and came to have offices in Manchester and Birmingham, and to number over 25,000 subscribers (DNB). According to contemporary advertisements in Athenæum, Mudie’s library also supplied book societies and village libraries, and consisted ‘chiefly of works of permanent interest and value’. Origin is first listed among its stock in Athenæum, 3 December 1859, p. 724.
2
CD presumably refers to his reference in Origin to whale fossils being found in Secondary formations. See letter to Charles Lyell, 20 September [1859], and preceding letter.
4
See letter to John Murray, 15 October [1859], in which CD stated his intention to buy 70 copies of Origin for presentation. For CD’s list of presentation copies, which totalled 94, see Correspondence vol. 8, Appendix III.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 one] interl
1.2 if possible 1.3] interl
1.3 sheets] interl
1.6 that] interl
2.2 a] interl
5.1 my] after del ‘sheets’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2549,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2549