My dear Tyndall
I cannot bear the idea of your going to that screw Longman2 with your wares3 when John Murray4 is in the same street. I hope I have not taken too great a liberty in simply asking John whether he thinks such works as yours would suit him.
Everyone I know who has dealt with Longmans are disgusted with them and scientific men especially, and if your lectures on Sound and Heat5 should lead to a series of such works on Physics they would prove most valuable property and could not be in better hands than Murrays both for the author’s and public’s sake.
I am going to Ireland6 on Thursday night for a week or ten days.
Ever yours | J. D. Hooker.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/8/2552
LT Typescript Only
[late July or early August 1858]: the year is given based on the mention of Longman and Murray with regard to Tyndall’s planned book about glaciers (see n. 3), and it surely falls between letter 1530 (12 July) and letter 1563 (September). The month is given based on Hooker’s mention of taking a trip to Ireland, which appears to have occurred in August 1858. He was still writing letters from Kew at the end of July, and away from Kew for three weeks in August 1858 (see L. Huxley, Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, 2 vols [London: John Murray, 1918], vol. 1, p. 362). In a letter to Hooker dated 30 July 1858, Charles Darwin wrote, ‘I hope you & Mrs Hooker will have a very very pleasant tour’ (Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, 30 [July 1858], in F. Burkhardt, et al. [eds], The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 24 vols [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991], vol. 7 [1858–1859], p. 140–1).
that screw Longman: probably William Longman of the London publishers Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green. See letter 1530, n. 3. Tyndall would use this publisher for almost all of his subsequent books.
your wares: J. Tyndall, Glaciers of the Alps (London: John Murray, 1860).
Murray: John Murray, who published Glaciers of the Alps, implying that Tyndall took Hooker’s advice. He later explained why he transferred to Longman for his subsequent works, as Longman offered two thirds of the profits and paid him on the day of publication, while Murray had claimed part of the profits from American sales of an edition he had not published. See John Tyndall to John Murray, 4 September 1868, National Library of Scotland.
lectures on Sound and Heat: for Tyndall’s lectures on sound, see letter 1308, n. 7. For his lectures on heat, see letter 1440, n. 8 and letter 1510, n. 9.
going to Ireland: see n. 1.
Please cite as “Tyndall1535,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on