To John Murray   18 [June 1862]1

Down

18th

My dear Sir

I wish much for an answer about the Woodcuts. I am very sorry to be so troublesome.— Ask one of your clerks to answer me.—2

Yours very sincerely | in great Haste | C. Darwin

There is a superb, but I fear exaggerated, Review in “London Review”.3 But I have not been a fool, as I thought I was, to publish; for Asa Gray, about the most competent judge in world, thinks almost as highly of book as does London Review.—4

The Athenæum will hinder sale greatly.—5

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter to John Murray, 13 June [1862], and to the letter to Asa Gray, 10–20 June [1862] (see n. 2, below).
2
CD had asked Murray whether he could provide three plates from Orchids for a review proposed by Asa Gray (see letter to John Murray, 13 June [1862], and letter to Asa Gray, 10–20 June [1862]).
3
Miles Joseph Berkeley wrote an anonymous review of Orchids for the London Review and Weekly Journal of Politics, Arts and Science ([Berkeley] 1862). CD wrote ‘Rev J. M. Berkeley’ on a copy of the review now in the Scrapbook of reviews (DAR 226.1: 87).
5
CD refers to the critical review of Orchids by John R. Leifchild in the Athenæum, 24 May 1862, p. 691.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3609,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3609