From C.-F. Reinwald   22 October 1872

Paris. 15 Rue des Saints Pères

October 22d 1872

Dear Sir

We are very sorry to tell you that the state of mental health of our friend M Moulinié is in no means satisfactory, and that we were to look after another translator for your new work “on the Emotions”1 We propose now, Monsieur le docteur Pozzi, aide anatomiste et physiologiste à l’Ecole de Médecine, recommended by our friends MM Charles Martins of Montpellier and Professor Broca at Paris.2 M. Pozzi is ready to translate your work, and we are sure that he will give satisfaction in his work both to the author and the editor.

We should therefore be much obliged by giving your agreement to our choice, or in proposing yourself any person of your acquaintance with whom we could make an agreement—

You know that since twelve months M. Moulinié delayed the publication of the 2d Volume of the Descent of Man, and the Origin of Species. By our best exertions these two volumes are now nearly ready and we hope to send you the 2d Volume of the Descent before the end of this month. The Origin requires yet a month more, and will not be ready before the end of November next.3

The first volume of Descent has been sold till now at nearly 1200 copies, we hope that at the issue of the second volume the sale will still be more considerable.

Waiting for your kind reply, we remain | Dear Sir, | Your’s most obediently | C Reinwald & Co

To Charles Darwin, Esquire— Down

1
Jean Jacques Moulinié had been CD’s French translator since 1867, when he had been recommended to CD by Carl Vogt (see Correspondence vol. 15, letter from Carl Vogt, 23 April 1867). CD had evidently written to Moulinié on 18 August 1872 to ask whether he could translate Expression (see letter from C.-F. Reinwald, 13 September 1872).
2
Samuel Jean Pozzi was a student of medicine at Paris, as well as assistant in anatomy to Paul Broca (BLHA). Reinwald also refers to Charles Frédéric Martins.
3
Moulinié’s translation of Descent was published in 1872, the first volume in February and the second in November (Moulinié trans. 1872; see Journal général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, 2 March 1872, p. 91, and 30 November 1872, p. 563, and letter from C.-F. Reinwald, 23 November 1872). For more on the reasons for the delay in publishing the translation of Origin 6th ed. (Moulinié trans. 1873), see letter from J. J. Moulinié, 1 January 1872 and nn. 1–3.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8571,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8571