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From John Murray   29 July [1874]1

50, Albemarle St. | W.

July 29

My Dear Sir

In making up my book Accounts, as usual at this Season I find your Orchid at last quite exhausted & a small Balance coming to you from the Sales of £10.14.3   For that balance I beg to enclose a Cheque, after deducting the amount of your Private Acc wch reduces the sum due to £2"4"3.2

The Sale of your Origin of Species, brought out last year, has made such progress that I am now prepared to pay you for the Edition of 2000 copies the sum of £180" for wch I also enclose a cheque & shall be obliged by your signing a receipt   About 12 the Edition still remains on hand.3

No movement in the “Expression”—4

With best comps I remain | My Dear Sir | your obliged & faithful serv | John Murray

Can you suggest the name of a fit & proper person to Edit Mrs Somervilles Physical Sciences & bring it down to the advanced Science of the Day?5

Chas Darwin Esqr

1
The year is established by the reference to payments for sales (see nn. 2 and 3, below).
2
CD recorded the receipt of £2 4s. 3d. for sales of Orchids in his Account books–banking account (Down House MS) on 31 July 1874.
3
CD recorded the receipt of £180 for sales of Origin 6th ed. in his Account books–banking account (Down House MS) on 31 July 1874.
4
Expression.
5
Mary Somerville’s On the connexion of the physical sciences (Somerville 1834) had gone through several editions during her lifetime, the last of which was the ninth edition in 1858 (Somerville 1858). A tenth edition appeared in 1877, corrected and revised by Arabella Burton Buckley (Somerville 1877).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9574,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9574