64 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



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.* 



After much consideration, and on the strong advice of 

 Lyell and others, I have resolved to have the present book as 

 it is (excepting correcting errors, or. here and there inserting 

 short sentences) and to use all my strength, which is but little^ 

 to bring out the first part (forming a separate volume, with 

 index, &c.) of the three volumes which will make my bigger 

 work ; so that I am very unwilling to take up time in making 

 corrections for an American edition. I enclose a list of a few 

 corrections in the second reprint, which you will have re- 

 ceived by this time complete, and I could send four or five 

 corrections or additions of equally small importance, or rather 

 of equal brevity. I also intend to write a short preface with 

 a brief history of the subject. These I will set about, as they 

 must some day be done, and I will send them to you in a short 

 time — the few corrections first, and the preface afterwards, 

 unless I hear that you have given up all idea of a separate 

 edition. You will then be able to judge whether it is worth 

 having the new edition with your review prefixed. Whatever 

 be the nature of your review, I assure you I should feel it a 

 great honour to have my book thus preceded. . . . 



Asa Gray to C. Darwin. 



Cambridge, January 23rd, i860. 

 My dear Darwin, — You have my hurried letter telling 

 you of the arrival of the remainder of the sheets of the re- 

 print, and of the stir I had made for a reprint in Boston. 



* In a letter to Mr. Murray, i860, my father wrote : — " I am amused 

 by Asa Gray's account of the excitement my book has made amongst 

 naturalists in the U. States. Agassiz has denounced it in a newspaper, 



