Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
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Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
Tell Darwin all this. I will write to him when I get a chance. As I have
promised, he and you shall have fair-play here... I must myself write
a review of Darwin's book for 'Silliman's Journal' (the more so that I
suspect Agassiz means to come out upon it) for the next (March) No., and
I am now setting about it (when I ought to be every moment working the
Expl[oring] Expedition Compositae, which I know far more about). And
really it is no easy job, as you may well imagine.
I doubt if I shall please you altogether. I know I shall not please
Agassiz at all. I hear another reprint is in the Press, and the book
will excite much attention here, and some controversy...
CHARLES DARWIN TO ASA GRAY. Down, January 28th [1860].
My dear Gray,
Hooker has forwarded to me your letter to him; and I cannot express how
deeply it has gratified me. To receive the approval of a man whom one
has long sincerely respected. And whose judgment and knowledge are most
universally admitted, is the highest reward an author can possibly wish
for; and I thank you heartily for your most kind expressions.
I have been absent from home for a few days, and so could not earlier
answer your letter to me of the 10th of January. You have been extremely
kind to take so much trouble and interest about the edition. It has been
a mistake of my publisher not thinking of sending over the sheets. I
had entirely and utterly forgotten your offer of receiving the sheets
as printed off. But I must not blame my publisher, for had I remembered
your most kind offer I feel pretty sure I should not have taken
advantage of it; for I never dreamed of my book being so successful with
general readers; I believe I should have laughed at the idea of sending
the sheets to America. (In a letter to Mr. Murray, 1860, my father
wrote:--"I am amused by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has
made amongst naturalists in the United States. Agassiz has denounced
it in a newspaper, but yet in such terms that it is in fact a fine
advertisement!" This seems to refer to a lecture given before the
Mercantile Library Association.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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