To Asa Gray   4 August [1866]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Aug 4th.

My dear Gray

I am going to write only a line to thank you most cordially for all the great trouble which you have taken about the new edit. of the Origin. From what you say it is evidently hopeless, & I am sorry for it for my own sake & for all your labour in vain.2

I will let Murray hear your suggestion of sending copies to the Un. States.3 Although the book is complete & bound, Murray for trade reasons will not sell it till November; but he promised to send a copy to you.4

I hope to begin printing my new book towards the close of the year & I will send sheets as printed in hopes that you will have the great kindness to agree for an American edition.5 What a misfortune for scientific works is your american plan of stereotyping.6

With cordial thanks | believe me my dear Gray | Yours most sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Asa Gray, 27 August 1866.
2
Gray was in communication with the American publisher D. Appleton & Co. about a revised US edition of Origin (see letter from Asa Gray, 18 July 1866).
3
Gray had suggested that CD’s publisher, John Murray, supply copies of the fourth edition of Origin for the American market (see letter from Asa Gray, 18 July 1866).
4
On Murray’s reasons for delaying publication of the fourth edition of Origin, see the letter from John Murray, 18 July [1866]. See also letter from John Murray, 23 July [1866]. For CD’s own presentation list for the book, see Correspondence vol.14, Appendix IV.
5
CD refers to Variation. Gray apparently forwarded this letter to the American publisher James Thomas Fields of the firm Tickner & Fields, adding the following note to the last page: ‘Cambridge 27th Aug. 66 | Dear Mr Fields | Perhaps you will draft me a line, which I can forward to Mr Darwin, to encourage him in his disposition to send on advance sheets of his new book. | Truly Yours | Asa Gray’. In the event, the first American edition of Variation was published by Orange Judd & Co. in 1868 (Freeman 1977).
6
On the process of stereotyping used to produce the American edition of Origin, see the letter to Asa Gray, 16 April [1866] and n. 11.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5177,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5177