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The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913) was one of the world's most important scientists. His seminal contributions to biology rival those of his friend and colleague Charles Darwin, though he is far less well known. Together Wallace and Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, and their prolific subsequent work laid the foundations of modern evolutionary biology, and much more besides.
Wallace made enduring scholarly contributions to subjects as diverse as glaciology, land reform, anthropology, ethnography, epidemiology, and astrobiology. His pioneering work on evolutionary biogeography (the science that seeks to explain the geographical distribution of organisms) led to him becoming recognised as that subject’s ‘father’. Beyond this Wallace is regarded as the pre-eminent collector and field biologist of tropical regions of the 19th century, and his book The Malay Archipelago (which was Joseph Conrad’s favourite bedside reading) is one of the most celebrated travel writings of that century and has never been out of print. Wallace was a man with an extraordinary breadth of interests who was actively engaged with many of the big questions and important issues of his day. He was anti-slavery, anti-eugenics, anti-vivisection, anti-militarism, anti-Imperialism, a conservationist and an advocate of woman's rights. He strongly believed in the rights of the ordinary person, was a socialist, an anti-vaccinationist (for rational reasons), and a believer in naturalistic, evolutionary spiritualism. He did not come from a privileged background and was largely self-taught. For a brief biography see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/mini-biography
The Wallace Correspondence Project (WCP) was founded by George Beccaloni in 2010. Its aims are to locate, digitise, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and publish Wallace's surviving correspondence and other manuscripts. About 5,700 letters to and from Wallace are currently known to survive, and they are held by c. 240 institutions and individuals worldwide. Wallace's letters are a biographical treasure trove, which provides a far better picture of the 'real' Wallace than his heavily edited and censored published writings (e.g. his autobiography My Life (1905) and his letters in Marchant's Letters and Reminiscences (1916)). For example, Wallace never even mentions his wife's name (Annie) in any of his published writings, including his autobiography. The letters are also key to gaining a deeper understanding of his scientific and other work: how and why his ideas arose, and how they evolved over time.
The WCP is unlocking this valuable resource by gathering all the letters together for the first time, and transcribing them so that they can be more easily read and information within them discovered using electronic searches for words and phrases. The vast amount of unpublished information which is coming to light will surely form the basis for numerous articles, scholarly papers, PhD theses and perhaps the first definitive biography.
Epsilon is being used by the WCP's as its online archive of Wallace's correspondence. It replaces our previous archive, Wallace Letters Online, which was last updated in 2015. The process of editing the transcripts and associated metadata is a work in progress which will take many years to complete. Our project’s policy is, however, to make the information we have available to users at the earliest possible opportunity, even if it is incomplete and/or imperfect. For a guide to our data, including the protocols we use for metadata and transcriptions, please see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
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Sending a box of plants, including Gentians, gathered at the Furka Pass, detailed instructions for planting in greenhouse, plans to put out on new rockery; Pa (Annie's father William Mitten) finding lots of curiosities including miniature willows; plans to go on to Grimsel Hospice and Meiringen.
Arrival and journey with her father (William Mitten) by steamer and train, food, and plans to go on to Stangerbourn; her father's health.
Walk (with William Mitten) over Grimsel Pass, collecting Soldanellas and a Primula; plants boxed and sent off; plans to walk to Handeck to botanise and see a fine waterfall.
Walk with Annie's father (William Mitten) from Grimsel Hospice; visit to Reichenbach Falls and gorge of the Aar; sending a box of plants collected including a beech fern and some Asplenium septentrionale (fern); plans to go to Wengern and stay a week; Mitten collecting mosses; cost of postage of newspapers from England.
Plans for Annie's father (William Mitten) and ARW to tour in Switzerland after her return; expects many rare plants in the mountains, possibility of visiting Pilatus or Stanzenhorn, asks Annie to enquire about hotel rates there, and about a hotel in Lucerne for day of their arrival; regards to Bessie; asks for news of her tour and fellow-travellers; receipt of letter from Miss Jekyll enclosing an enquiry from another correspondent re effect of sea-air on plants at Lyme Regis; mosquitoes at Rhone glacier.
ARW leaves at midday on Friday for Switzerland. CR could come tomorrow (Thursday) evening and stay the night. ARW enquires about sleeping carriages, etc., from Bale [sic] to Brussels; is glad CR found something new in Ireland. Thanks for ?Pinguicula which arrived in excellent condition.
ARW will be pleased to see CR and his sister when they come to Parkstone. ARW & Mr Mitten had a good time on the whole in Switzerland. Mr Mitten brought home plants which have filled over 100 pots. ARW was delighted with the signs of glaciation and has material for another anti-?Bonneyite paper.