WCP5058

[1]¹

8^th Feb[ruary]: [1]900

D[octo]^r. A. R. Wallace

Dear Sir,

We are much obliged by your letter of yesterday,² & enclose Agreement Form³ we propose. We have put the royalty in American & Colonial sales at 1½^d [one penny halfpenny] which we hope you will think fair. We shall not ourselves even ask more than 10d for large quantities for export. Our standard rate for books thus bought to practically all the American publishers with whom we deal is one-third of the published price plus the cost of binding; & we do not think we have, during the last 15 years, received higher rates than these. The importers have of course to pay the duty (25%), freight & packing, so that the books out [2]⁴ there cost them fully as much as copies here cost wholesale [1 word illeg.] us, & they do all the packing[?] & advertising at their own expense.

We shall see M^r. Francis Williams⁵ this afternoon, & will ask him if he needs the [MS blotted] copy back. We believe he made them in duplicate, one for your retention.

We have put down the minimum first printing at 5000. If we can secure an American order from the proofs, we should of course increase the first printing by the [1 word illeg.] amount of that order.

We are, | Yours very truly | [no signature]

We have seen M^r Williams, & he would like to have the book back, as it is more complete than his.