Ɛpsilon

From R. F. Cooke   19 March 1875

50A, Albemarle Street, London. W.

March 19 1875

My dear Sir

It is rather curious about the alteration in the reprint of yr Variations.1

I have a copy at home & will refer to it tonight & see if it be different & let you know by post. In the meantime, we have examined the Waste sheets, we have in our Warehouse & I send you 2 copies of the sheet in which p 375 appears, & by the different colour of the paper, we think must be a sheet of the 1st. & the 2nd. edition, but the note is alike in each!!!2

Yours faithfully | Robt. Cooke

C. Darwin Esq

Can you give me the proper address of Dr. Kowalewski who is in our debt for Plates to the Expressions.3

1
John Murray had recently agreed to produce a second edition of Variation (see letter from John Murray, 17 February [1875]). No letter from CD to Murray or Cooke mentioning an alteration in the second printing of the first edition has been found. On changes to the second printing of the first edition of Variation, see Correspondence vol. 16 and Freeman 1977.
2
Page 375 of the first volume of Variation was unchanged between the first and second printing. In the second volume, the text on page 375 was altered, but the note was unchanged. The text was altered from ‘Nearly similar views have been propounded, as I find, by other authors, more especially by Mr. Herbert Spencer;29 but they are here modified and amplified.’ to ‘Views in some respects similar have been propounded, as I find, by other authors.29’, possibly to accommodate a lower heading on the previous page. In the second edition (2: 370), the text was altered to ‘Views in many respects similar have been propounded by various authors.’ and the note was substantially altered.
3
Vladimir Onufrievich Kovalevsky had translated Expression into Russian ([Kovalevsky] trans. 1872). His brother, Alexander Onufrievich Kovalevsky, had directed the translation. It is not certain which of the brothers is referred to by Cooke.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9893,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9893