From G. H. Darwin [6 or 7 August 1874]1
Dear Mother
Read this to F if the letter is’nt gone— if not suppress it2
Dear Father,
If you’ve not sent off yr. letter to Murray I want to say a few more words.
Murray may bonâ fide make it an absolute rule not to meddle in any way with his Editor,3 & if he does so, does’nt it appear rather hard on him that you shd. cut him. No doubt you wd’nt feel the same to him after the failure to get my letter inserted, as before, but you have but little personal dealing with him except by letter & it wd. be a great annoyance to go to a new publisher Do you not think it wd. be sufficient then if you were to merely urge it on him strongly & not push it to the point of a cut.
I’m a grown man now & shd. stand on my own footing, & if it is refused I’m really no worse off than if I had sent my letter direct to the Editor & it had been refused.
Jackson4 said, when I told him you thought you wd cut Murray, that he doubted whether it was quite fair to put pressure on an Editor, who is probably quite indept. of the publisher in his opinions, thro’ the publisher.
Of course if you quite feel you cd’nt stand going on with Murray in case of refusal there’s nothing more to be said.
How wd. it be to delay till Monday when we can talk about it?
Yours | G H Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
[Mivart, St George Jackson.] 1874b. Primitive man: Tylor and Lubbock. [Essay review of the works of John Lubbock and Edward Burnett Tylor.] Quarterly Review 137 (1874): 40–77.
Summary
Urges CD not to break with Murray even if he does not force the editor [of Q. Rev.] to insert GHD’s letter [in response to Mivart’s attack]. Murray may have a rule not to meddle with editor.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9592
- From
- George Howard Darwin
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 210.2: 40
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9592,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9592.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22