From John Murray   10 October [1870]1

50, Albemarle St. | W.

Octr 10th

Dear Mr Darwin

I enclose you Mr Dallas reply respecting your Index—wch reads satisfactorily—so I hope no delay will arise from that quarter.2

It is odd that the passage to wch I referred you in your proofs—now eludes my search but it occurs very near to the note, wch you have very properly veiled in Latin.3

Mr Clowes has kept me waiting for his estimate of the cost of Electrotypes— I can now inform you that I will supply the set of 62 cuts for £14"   They will cost £7" & the surplus will go to diminish our expenses for Illustrations4

You shall have 4 sets of the sheets as fast as they are worked off— I hope you have arranged to receive something handsome from the Americans—in return for this advantage, wch I have given over to you with the desire that you shd benefit. The Yankee publisher cannot fail to gain.5 I have also a request from Holland for a set for a Dutch Translation—6 What do you say to this?

I remain My Dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | John Murray

Charles Darwin Esq

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from John Murray, 28 September [1870].
2
Murray had written to William Sweetland Dallas after CD suggested that Dallas be commissioned to write the index for Descent (see letter to John Murray, 26 September 1870, and letter from John Murray, 28 September [1870]). The enclosure has not been found.
3
For Murray’s reference to a passage in the proof-sheets of Descent, see the letter from John Murray, 28 September [1870] and n. 7; see also the letter to John Murray, 29 September [1870]. CD wrote Descent 2: 345 n. 53 in Latin, but Murray could be referring to the quotation in Latin in Descent 2: 273.
4
Murray refers to illustrations for Descent and to one of the family members of the printers William Clowes & Sons. See letter to John Murray, 26 September 1870.
5
CD had promised the American publisher of Descent, D. Appleton & Co., sheets of the text and stereotypes of the woodcuts (see letter to John Murray, 29 September [1870] and n. 3).
6
Hendrik Adrianus Kramers asked Murray whether he could have early sheets for a translation of Descent in a letter of 13 September 1870 (National Library of Scotland, John Murray Archive, Ms. 42153 f. 53). The first Dutch translation of Descent was published by Ykema & Van Gyn in Delft (Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen trans. 1871–2).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7339,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7339