Ɛpsilon

To Asa Gray   21 December [1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

Dec. 21

My dear Gray

One word to ask you as soon as ever you have definitely fixed on title of the Reviews2 (if, as I hope, you publish) to send it me & the London Agent or Publisher (it would be best if a regular publisher like Trübner); for if I can hear before my new Edit of Origin is bound (& Printers have not yet sent me 1st sheet) I would ask Murray to permit me to bind in every copy a slip, as advertisement.—3 If possible price had better be fixed likewise.—

In Haste | Ever yours | C. Darwin

I have only just thought of the manner of advertisement leave 2 lines of space at top of diag - intentional gap.

by Asa Gray Professor of Botany, &c. &c. ? Trubner & Co: London.    Price —?—

1
Dated by the reference to the forthcoming publication of Gray 1861 (see n. 2, below).
2
CD hoped that Gray would be able to republish his review of Origin ([Gray] 1860b) as a separate pamphlet that could be distributed in England. See letter to Asa Gray, 11 December [1860].
3
CD added a ‘Postscript’ to the preliminary pages of the third edition of Origin to advertise the publication of Gray’s reprint. It reads (Origin 3d ed., p. xii): An admirable, and, to a certain extent, favourable Review of this work, including an able discussion on the Theological bearing of the belief in the descent of species, has now been separately published by Professor Asa Gray as a pamphlet, about 60 pages in length. It is entitled, ‘Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology. A Free Examination of Darwin’s Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American Reviewers. By Asa Gray, M.D., Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University. Reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly for July, August, and October, 1860. London: Trübner and Co., 60, Paternoster-row. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1861.’ (Price 1s. 6 d.) When first published in the Atlantic Monthly, the review was unsigned. The leaf of advertisements bound at the end of this edition of Origin lists only works published by John Murray (see Freeman 1977, pp. 78–9).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3028,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3028