To John Murray   19 October [1867]

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

Oct 19th

My dear Sir

In your advertisment of my Book in the Athenæum there is an absurd error (which I formerly pointed out) viz principles of .... . . Election instead of Selection. I have no objection to these “Principles” being inserted in the advertisement, but I think that you agreed with me that “The Variation of Animals & Plants under Domestication” was sufficient. for the Title.—1

I am getting on well.— Vol. I completed. Vol. 2. all sheets corrected the first time, & nearly the half revised. I shall have finished the whole by at latest, if I keep well, by 10th or 12th November.— I hope you have urged Mr Dallas to lose no time about the Index, & that you have ordered the Revises to be sent to him: the Revises wd do perfectly for Index.—2 You could not, I think, have got a better man than Mr. Dallas.—

I hope to Heaven that the Book will not turn out a failure.—

My dear Sir | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘1867. Oct 19 | C Darwin’

1
The advertisement for Variation appeared in the 19 October 1867 issue of the Athenæum, p. 487. The title given was: ‘The variation of animals and plants under domestication; or, the principles of inheritance, reversion, crossing, inter-breeding, and election’. Murray had also made an error in an earlier advertisement of the book under a different title (see Correspondence vol. 13, letter to John Murray 2 June [1865] and n. 3).
2
William Sweetland Dallas had been invited by Murray to prepare the index to Variation (see letter from John Murray, 23 September [1867]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.5 for] over ‘.—’
2.1 sheets] interl
2.2 the whole] interl
2.3 or] after del ‘of’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5654,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5654