The origin of signatures
…Bibliophile was more concerned - as spectator - with lot 206, the Darwinists' black tulip, a signed presentation copy of On the Origin of Species. Darwin would regularly send his publisher, John Murray, a list of people to get presentation copies, and these would be inscribed "with the author's compliments" (or "greetings" or "kind regards") by dutiful clerks. Specialists can identify Clerk 1, Clerk 2, Clerk 3; except for various Darwins and the occasional Wedgwood, however, nobody was known to have received a copy inscribed by Charles himself. But the author got six free copies on publication, and it is not astonishing that some of these would be surplus to his own - or the family's - requirements.