His views on the success of the book are worth recording. To Murray he writes, April 5, 1859: "It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public, and I am sure that the views are original. If you think otherwise, I must repeat my request that you will freely reject my work; and though I shall be a little disappointed, I shall be in no way injured." And again to J. D. Hooker: "... Please do not say to any one that I thought my book on Species would be fairly popular, and have a fairly remunerative sale (which was the height of my ambition), for if it proves a dead failure, it would make me the more ridiculous." After the book went to press he found it necessary to make many corrections involving no slight extra expense; without waiting for Murray to complain he took the initiative in setting the matter upon the proper footing in the following manner, in a letter written June 14, 1859: "P.S. I have been looking at the corrections, and considering them. It seems to me that I shall put you to quite unfair expense. If you please I should like to enter into some such arrangement as the following: "When work completed, you to allow in the account a fairly moderately heavy charge for corrections, and all excess over that to be deducted from my profits, or paid by me individually." "... But you are really too generous about the, to me, scandalously heavy corrections. Are you not acting unfairly towards yourself? Would it not be better at least to share the £72 8s.? I shall be fully satisfied, for I had no business to send, though quite unintentionally and unexpectedly, such badly composed MS. to the printers." The first edition, a child, Darwin calls it, in whose appearance he takes infinite pride and pleasure, was published November 24: "It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterward. Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large sale. It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese [a mistake] and is there much studied. Even an essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that the theory is contained in the Old Testament!"