From John Murray   [1 July – 23 August 1862]¹

The date range is established by the dates mentioned in the account and by the relationship between this document and the letter to John Murray, 24 August [1862] (Correspondence vol. 10).

For a discussion of the publication of Orchids, see Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV.

William Clowes & Sons, printers.

Murray ordered 48$\frac{1}{4}$ reams of sheet-and-a-half post paper. Sheet-and-a-half post was one and a half times the size of ordinary post; each sheet was about 500 mm by 600 mm, accommodating 12 leaves of an octavo size book (about 200 mm by 125 mm uncut) such as Orchids (Gaskell 1972, p. 224, and Nicholas Smith, CUL, personal information).

Under the 1842 Copyright Act, four copies of any new work published in the United Kingdom and the British Dominions were to be delivered to an officer of the Stationers’ Company for distribution on demand to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the ‘Public Library’ (now the University Library) in Cambridge, the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh, and the library of Trinity College, Dublin. A copy was also to be delivered to the British Museum in London. Before the 1842 Act, the Stationers’ Company had been responsible for handling the British Museum’s copy as well as those of a number of other libraries legally entitled to copies. See Seville 1999, pp. 233, 262.

The illustrations for Orchids were made by George Brettingham Sowerby Jr.

For CD’s presentation list for Orchids, see Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV. Sixty-five individuals and three institutions are listed. CD presumably paid for the extra copies himself: see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to John Murray, 24 August [1862] and n. 2. See also ibid., letters to John Murray, 9 April [1862] and 2 May [1862].

Under the 1842 Copyright Act, five shillings was the cost of making an entry in the Book of Registry of the Stationers’ Company, whose headquarters were at Stationers’ Hall, London. Registration did not affect copyright, but was ‘a necessary preliminary to an action at law for copyright infringement’ (Seville 1999, p. 235).

Trade purchasers received one free copy in every twenty-five, as was the general practice (Plant 1965, p. 405), and were charged 6s. or 6s. 5d. Orchids went on sale to the public priced at 9s. See Freeman 1977, p. 113.

This information was conveyed to CD in the letter from John Murray, 24 February [1866] (Correspondence vol. 14).

The fourth edition of Origin was published in 1866.