Ɛpsilon

To J. V. Carus   9 July [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

July 9th

My dear Sir

I will write to the Heliotype Coy. if Mr Koch desires it, but I do not believe it wd. do the least good, Has not Mr K. an agent in London, whom he cd. instruct to look over the copies before paying for them? I got Mr. Murray to act thus for his copies.2

There is another plan: the publisher of the Dutch Translation, M. Ijkema of Delft made same complaint as Mr. K., & for his 2d. Edit, he got fresh plates prepared somehow in Holland & declared to me that the copies were very good, & much cheaper than those from London.3

Now wd it be worth while for Mr. K. to write Mr Ijkema, & enquire at what cost he wd supply copies; but in this case it wd. be necessary for you to see specimen copies & judge for yourself; as very bad copies wd. spoil the book.—

My son has got as far as Hanover, but I fear from his last letter, instead of going on to Leipzig, he will be forced to return, & we much wish that he was safely back.4

I am sorry to hear that your health is not so well; but is not surprising after all your great fatigue.— Now here is a bad job, if you could have come here on Augt. the 4th, we could not receive you for on the 25th of July we leave home to pay visits for a month, as I much need some rest.5 The Fates seem to have ordained that we shd. never meet.6

Yours most sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. V. Carus, 7 July 1874.
2
See letter from J. V. Carus, 7 July 1874 and n. 3. The Heliotype Company had been late in fulfilling the initial order for plates for Expression and the quality of the plates was uneven (see Correspondence vol. 20, letter from R. F. Cooke, 20 November 1872, and letter to R. F. Cooke, 20 November [1872]. Eduard Koch was head of the firm E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, CD’s German publisher. John Murray was CD’s publisher.
3
No letter from Johan IJkema, the publisher of the Dutch translation of Expression (Hartogh Heijs van Zouteveen trans. 1873), about the alternative source for plates has been found.
4
George Howard Darwin returned from abroad on 11 July 1874 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
5
CD was away from home from 25 July until 24 August 1874 (see ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
6
CD and Carus had also planned but failed to meet in 1870 (Correspondence vol. 18, letter from J. V. Carus, 18 April 1870) and 1873 (Correspondence vol. 21, letter to J. V. Carus, 2 August [1873]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 his] interl
2.3 to me that] interl
5.2 great] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9539,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9539