Ɛpsilon

To John Murray   22 [November 1860]1

Down Bromley Kent

22d

My dear Mr Murray

Thank you for your note. You do not say that you can send a copy of sheets of Origin for corrections: if you have not please get 2d-hand copy from Mudie2 & send me & charge to me.—3

I hate troubling you to write, so please ask one of your Clerks to write & tell me how soon you wish me to begin to send proofs to Printers, as I have about 10 days or fortnight’s work, which I should much like to get finished before I begin.—4

All my corrections I conjecture would not take above 3 weeks & I Could send some sheets to Printers after I have done half.— But what will be longest job will be to glance over all the endless Reviews to guide me in my corrections—

Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘3 Decr 1860’

1
The endorsement seems to refer to the date of Murray’s response (see n. 3, below). The month is otherwise confirmed by the relationship to the preceding letter and to the letter to John Murray, 3 December [1860].
2
Mudie’s Select Library, a subscription lending library, had purchased 500 copies of the first edition of Origin on publication (see Correspondence vol. 7, letter to John Murray, 24 November [1859], n. 1). The library was owned by Charles Edward Mudie.
3
CD evidently received from Murray a copy of the volume on which to mark up his corrections. See letter to John Murray, 3 December [1860].
4
CD refers to his study of insectivorous plants, the results of which he was writing up. According to his journal (de Beer ed. 1959), CD began to prepare the third edition of Origin in December 1860.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 copy of] ‘of’ over illeg
3.2 to Printers] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3029,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3029