To J. V. Carus   19 March [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

March 19th.

My dear Sir

I am extremely sorry to hear of your late illness, as every fresh attack must shatter your health & weaken your strength; but I am very glad to hear that you are now pretty well again. Of course I shall be glad to hear of a collected edition of my books, but I really can form no opinion whether it is adviseable in the way of sale.2 I know, however, that some English think that collected works, printed uniformly, sell best, & this has always rather surprised me.—

The correction of the Descent of Man has been a heavy job & is not yet quite completed: it will, I am sorry to say cost you a good deal of trouble in the translation, but not so much as it has cost me, as I have had to reflect much what to alter & to add.— I have also taken much pains over style & this will not concern you.3 As soon as this is done I shall go on with my small book (the M.S. half-ready) on Drosera & Dionæa, & this will include a corrected edit. of my papers on Climbing plants.—4 My next book, (if I live & have strength to complete it) will be on the advantages of Crossing Plants, & this will include all my papers on Dimorphic & Trimorphic plants with new & related matter.5 With respect to the few short miscellaneous papers which I have published, I doubt whether they are worth republishing, except perhaps two rather long papers in Transactions of Geological Soc. On the ice-action in the S. Hemisphere & on the great earthquake in Chile.6 I do not think I have any record of such fugitive things as mere letters to papers; but I have kept copies of most things, & you can hereafter determine yourself what is worth republishing. Proofs have just begun to come in of my book on Coral Reefs.—7 I have given you the foregoing details, as I have thought they might be some sort of guide to you.—

I am much pleased to hear of the sale of my books in Germany— When you come to England, or when you leave Edinburgh, I hope that you will pay me a visit;8 but I never know long before hand, when I shall be at home, for I find that I cannot get on without frequent rests. I must have one almost immediately, as the correction of the Descent of Man has tired me much.9

I hope that I have not wearied you with this long scrawl.—

My dear Sir | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. V. Carus, 15 March 1874.
3
CD had sent the revised text of the first volume of Descent to the printers on 8 March (see letter to J. V. Carus, 8 March [1874]); he was evidently still revising the second volume. Descent 2d ed. was published as a single volume. Carus’s German translation of Descent 2d ed. (Carus trans. 1875a) appeared in two volumes in 1875, and formed volumes 5 and 6 of CD’s collected works published by E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Freeman 1977).
4
Insectivorous plants was published in 1875, as was Climbing plants 2d ed.
5
Cross and self fertilisation was published in 1876.
6
‘Distribution of the erratic boulders’ and ‘Volcanic phenomena and the formation of mountain chains’ were published in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London in 1842 and 1840 respectively.
7
CD was working on Coral reefs 2d ed. (‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
8
Carus was planning to leave Leipzig for Britain in mid-April in order to lecture at the University of Edinburgh (see letter from J. V. Carus, 15 March 1874 and n. 1).
9
According to his ‘Journal’ (Appendix II), CD did not take a rest until he visited Henrietta Emma Litchfield from 21 to 29 April 1874.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.4 & this … you.] interl
2.5 (the … ready)] interl; parentheses over commas
2.6 a] after del ‘with’
2.11 rather long] interl
3.3 cannot] after del illeg
3.4 correction of the 3.5] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9367,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9367