To John Murray   27 January [1867]

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

Jan 27th

My dear Sir

I hope that you will urge your friend to give his judgment soon. He has now had the M.S. for nearly 3 weeks,1 & I shall soon have nothing to do for my chapter on Man is nearly finished.2 Please remember if your friend’s verdict is against me, & you decline to publish as proposed, that I shall suffer great loss of time in arranging some other method of publication. If you decline to publish, I think you will make a mistake, for though I do not believe this book will have nearly so large a sale as the “Origin”, I shall be astonished if it has not a fair sale, for as yet I have found what interests me greatly, likewise interests others, & some of the chapters in my present book have much interested me.

I earnestly beg you to do your best to come to an early decision.—3

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘1867. 27 Jany’

1
Murray’s friend was John Milton. In his letter of 9 January [1867], Murray wrote that he had sent the manuscript of Variation to a literary man who was not a man of science (see letter from John Murray, 9 January [1867] and n. 4); Murray said he expected to hear of his impression in a week. For CD’s sceptical response, see his letter to Murray of 10 January [1867].
2
CD was composing an additional chapter on humans for Variation (see letter to John Murray, 3 January [1867] and n. 5). CD’s chapter was not published in Variation but the material in it was used in Descent and Expression.
3
CD also expressed anxiety about the publication of Variation in his letter to Murray of 3 January [1867]. For information on the publication of both Origin and Variation, see Freeman 1977.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5379,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5379