Summary

Making slow progress with Variation.

Summary

Acknowledges receipt of promissory note for £372 from JM for third edition of Origin.

Summary

Regrets the error in the bill and receipt. CD is surprised at so large a reduction in profit in the last edition.

Summary

Offers to publish Orchids, giving CD one-half of the profits of each edition.

Summary

Would JM object to size of Orchids being same as W. N. Hutchinson, Dog breeding [1850]? Prefers little book, not to look pretentious.

Summary

Likes the idea of matching Orchids with Origin. Begs for large print and spacing so that the book will not look "ridiculously small".

Summary

G. B. Sowerby, Jr has done the drawings for Orchids woodcuts. Calls JM’s attention to the fact that a first-rate cutter must be employed.

Summary

Thanks JM for bill for £480 and sends receipt. Number of copies differs in note and in receipt (2500 and 2000, respectively). Not surprised sale is slackening; number printed was bold. Reminds JM to advertise "with additions and corrections".

Will consult JM on illustrations for Variation.

Summary

Encloses amended note of £372 for third edition of Origin. Provides details of the calculation of profits.

Summary

Thinks third edition of Origin should advertise "additions and corrections", for the additions are important. They will add 30 pages to the book; there will also be a short historical sketch. Asks for some copies for friends.

Also curious to know how Journal of researches has sold. The new issue seemed a rash venture to him.

Summary

Asks that a copy of Origin [3d ed.] be sent to Mlle Clémence-Auguste Royer; she has arranged with a publisher for a French translation.

Origin is exciting much attention in Germany.

Surprised to receive a Dutch translation.

Has never seen an advertisement [of 3d ed.], which is a pity. Hopes "Bishop of Oxford & Co." have not made JM sorry he published it.

Summary

Thanks JM for his liberal offer [to publish Orchids]. CD fears the public will not be interested, but thinks it will "do good to the Origin as it will show that I worked hard on details and it will perhaps serve [to] illustrate how Natural History may be worked under the belief of the modification of Species".

Summary

If JM disapproves of inserting CD’s geological works on back of title-page [of Origin, 3d ed.], he should strike them out. CD cares little. Reminds him to insert "additions and corrections" in advertisements. Sends list for presentation copies.

Asks whether his Journal of researches has sold at all satisfactorily.

Summary

Asks JM’s opinion on publishing his MS on orchids. It has new facts, and resembles a Bridgewater Treatise, but only those who care for natural history would be interested. Would share the risk.

Summary

Gongora cannot be female of Acropera; it may itself be a male.

Hopes Daniel Oliver will "sink Atlantis" in his Royal Institution lecture.

Summary

Discusses the worsening relations between their two countries and the possibility of war.

Expects Orchids and his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63] to be out soon.

Thanks AG for some facts on dimorphism.

George Bentham has given him a list of Oxalis and Mentha species that are dimorphic like Primula.

Is in a "thick mud" regarding design in nature.

Summary

Rudimentary ovules of Acropera.

High opinion of Bates.

Orchid anatomy.

Summary

Gives notice of returning books by a carrier and thanks for assistance.

Asks whether Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville’s Ostéographie (1839–64) includes rabbits or hares.

Summary

Acropera species may be males of other orchids.

Homologies of ducts in orchids.

Went to British Museum to see Bates’s mimetic butterflies.

Summary

Lindley suggests Gongora may be female Acropera.

CD’s orchid book nearly ready for press.

Discovers trimorphism in Lythrum is in H. Lecoq [Études sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe (1854–8)].