<P> On 1 October Darwin finished the proofs, suffering from fits of vomiting . He then went off for a two - month stay at Ilkley Wells House, a spa in the town of Ilkley . He was joined by his family for a time of "frozen misery" in the unusually early winter . Darwin wrote "I have been very bad lately, having had an awful' crisis' one leg swelled like elephantiasis--eyes almost closed up--covered with a rash & fiery Boils; but they tell me it will surely do me much good--it was like living in Hell ." On 2 November he was pleased to receive from Murray a specimen copy bound in royal green cloth, priced at fifteen shillings . </P> <P> Presentation copies were sent out by Murray, and on 11 and 12 November, still at the spa, Darwin wrote notes to go with these complimentary copies . He disarmingly anticipated their reactions: to Asa Gray "there are very many serious difficulties", to the Revd . John Stevens Henslow "I fear you will not approve of your pupil", to Louis Agassiz "(not sent in) a spirit of defiance or bravado" and to Richard Owen "it will seem' an abomination' .", amongst others . For Wallace's copy he wrote "God knows what the public will think". </P> <P> On the Origin of Species was first published on 24 November 1859, priced at fifteen shillings . The book had been offered to booksellers at Murray's autumn sale on 22 November, and all available copies had been taken up immediately . In total, 1,250 copies were printed but after deducting presentation and review copies, and five for Stationers' Hall copyright, 1,192 copies were available for sale . Significantly, 500 were taken by Mudie's Library, ensuring that the book would be widely circulated . </P> <P> By then the novelist Charles Kingsley, a Christian socialist country rector, had sent Darwin a letter of praise (dated 18 November) regarding the presentation copy he had received: it was "just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development...as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made ." In the second edition Darwin added these lines to the last chapter, with attribution to "a celebrated author and divine". </P>

When did charles darwin publish his theory of evolution