Darwin Correspondence Project

Down Bromley Kent

Aug 27^th.—

My dear Sir

I returned everything to the Printers on Tuesday night.— I am much obliged for your note: the method by which you propose to pay me the 150£ will suit me, and I will acknowledge the note whenever I receive it.—

Will you please particularly to see, that one of my 12 copies is sent not later than Monday to M^r Lyell at 16 Hart St.; as he wishes to take it to America with him on Tuesday.—

Please to send the other 11 copies to M^r. Bain’s 1. Haymarket my Bookseller & Binder (marking outside copies for M^r. Darwin) not later than Tuesday or Wednesday night.

With respect to the Woodcuts: that of the Lizard to be put back to M^r Lyell’s Elements: four of them are your property, viz. that at p. 15/ p. 137/ p. 236/ p. 246/.^f1 All the remaining ones, please see carefully packed & returned to me, (if done with by Tuesday with the Books to M^r. Bain; if not then done with, directed to me at the Geological Soc: Somerset House; marked “not to be forwarded”.): Should you ever want a reprint; I can have no doubt, that I can borrow them from M^rs Smith & Elder again.—^f2

I am much obliged for the pleasant manner, in which you have transacted the business with me.—

I beg as you as an especial favour, that should my volume sell well, that you will take the trouble to inform me; both to gratify my vanity, as Author, & what I care equally for, that I may know, that you have had no cause to repent undertaking this little work.

Believe <me my d>ear Sir | Yours very faithfully | C. Darwin
J. Murray Esq^re P.S. Should you ever wish to publish old Books of Travel; I strongly recommend you to think of Hearne’s Travels,^f3 (strongly praised by Wordsworth);^f4 they are to my mind admirable & little known.— Drury’s Madagascar^f5 is also little known for its merits—

Footnotes

f1

Three of the original woodcuts for the first edition, which John Murray had presumably obtained from Henry Colburn, with one further woodcut of the scissor-beak bird (Rhynchops nigra) made at Murray’s expense (see letter to John Murray, [31 May 1845]).

f2

The remaining woodcuts were borrowed from Smith, Elder & Co., the publishers of Coral reefs and Volcanic islands. See letters to John Murray, [31 May 1845] and [27 July 1845].

f3

Hearne 1795.

f4

In the headnote to ‘The complaint of a forsaken Indian woman’, which appeared originally in William Wordsworth’s Lyrical ballads (1798).

f5

Drury 1729.