To John Murray 30 November 1877
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
Nov. 30/77
My dear Sir
I am extremely obliged for your letter & the accounts which make everything intelligible to me.—1
As I was very glad to get the “Orchids” published at profits it wd be very shabby in me to accept your offer now.—2
I think you are mistaken in supposing that I asked to be paid before the editions were sold off, & I feel almost sure that you must have misunderstood me. However this is now quite immaterial.
The plan which you say you generally follow with authors seems to me the fairest for both of us, & I fully agree to it.
Again accept my thanks for your letter & documents & I remain | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Summary
Thanks for accounts which make everything intelligible to him. Since he was glad to have Orchids published at one-half of profits for himself, he believes it would be very shabby to accept JM’s new offer of two-thirds profits. Thinks it would be fairer to both to change to JM’s usual practice with authors [i.e., annual statements of sales, payments based on them, and final accounting when all copies have been sold].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11262
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Murray
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- National Library of Scotland (John Murray Archive) (Ms. 42152 f. 299)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11262,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11262.xml
