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From John Murray   29 July [1874]1

50, Albemarle St. | W.

July 29

My Dear Sir

In making up my book Accounts, as usual at this Season I find your Orchid at last quite exhausted & a small Balance coming to you from the Sales of £10.14.3   For that balance I beg to enclose a Cheque, after deducting the amount of your Private Acc wch reduces the sum due to £2"4"3.2

The Sale of your Origin of Species, brought out last year, has made such progress that I am now prepared to pay you for the Edition of 2000 copies the sum of £180" for wch I also enclose a cheque & shall be obliged by your signing a receipt   About 12 the Edition still remains on hand.3

No movement in the “Expression”—4

With best comps I remain | My Dear Sir | your obliged & faithful serv | John Murray

Can you suggest the name of a fit & proper person to Edit Mrs Somervilles Physical Sciences & bring it down to the advanced Science of the Day?5

Chas Darwin Esqr

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the reference to payments for sales (see nn. 2 and 3, below).
2
CD recorded the receipt of £2 4s. 3d. for sales of Orchids in his Account books–banking account (Down House MS) on 31 July 1874.
3
CD recorded the receipt of £180 for sales of Origin 6th ed. in his Account books–banking account (Down House MS) on 31 July 1874.
5
Mary Somerville’s On the connexion of the physical sciences (Somerville 1834) had gone through several editions during her lifetime, the last of which was the ninth edition in 1858 (Somerville 1858). A tenth edition appeared in 1877, corrected and revised by Arabella Burton Buckley (Somerville 1877).

Bibliography

Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.

Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.

Origin 6th ed.: The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 6th edition, with additions and corrections. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.

Somerville, Mary. 1834. On the connexion of the physical sciences. London: John Murray.

Somerville, Mary. 1858. On the connexion of the physical sciences. 9th edition. London: John Murray.

Somerville, Mary. 1877. The connexion of the physical sciences. 10th edition. Corrected and revised by Arabella Burton Buckley. London: John Murray.

Summary

Orchids is at last sold out. Settles account.

The Origin [6th ed.] is making good [sales] progress.

Expression is not selling.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-9574
From
John Murray
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Albemarle St, 50
Source of text
DAR 210.11: 2
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9574,” accessed on 12 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9574.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22

letter

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