To J. D. Hooker   10 February [1868]1

Down

Feb. 10th

My dear Hooker

What is the good of having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edit. of 1500 copies of my book, & the sale so pressing that he has agreed with Clowes to get another edit in 14 days!2 This has done me a world of good for I had got into a sort of dogged hatred of my book. And now there has appeared a review in the Pall Mall which has pleased me excessively, more perhaps than is reasonable.3

I am quite content & do not now care how much I may be pitched into.— If by any chance you shd. hear who wrote the article in the Pall Mall, do please tell me: it is some one who writes capitally & knows the subject.

I went to luncheon on Sunday to Lubbocks,4 partly in hopes of seeing you, & be hanged to you, you were not there.

Your cock-a-hoop Friend | C. D

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Murray, 6 February [1868].
2
CD refers to John Murray, Variation, and the printers William Clowes & Sons. See letter from John Murray, 6 February [1868].
3
The review, which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette for 10, 15, and 17 February 1868, was by George Henry Lewes ([Lewes] 1868a; see letter from G. H. Lewes, 2 March 1868).
4
John and Ellen Frances Lubbock lived at High Elms, about a mile and a half from Down House.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5856,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5856