Violet's career; local friends; ARW's lecture at Parkstone Institute on "The Colours of Animals"; the Nineteenth Century; conservative journalism and the coal strike; articles in progress on glacial lakes.
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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
Violet's career; local friends; ARW's lecture at Parkstone Institute on "The Colours of Animals"; the Nineteenth Century; conservative journalism and the coal strike; articles in progress on glacial lakes.
Geological Survey; books read; Psychical Science Congress; delayed publication of article in the Nineteenth Century; Sharpe suggests article on House of Lords suitable for The Speaker; articles on the glacial epoch and the formation of lakes in the Fortnightly; garden plants; building of a pond.
Violet's club visits, her request for moss and peacock feathers; building and stocking of garden pond; delay of publication of article.
Violet's visits to a club for working girls; [Liverpool Museum]; advice on bookshelves with ink sketch plan; Christmas plans and gifts.
Violet's career and writing; Lake Tahoe; books read; shipwrecks in recent storm; garden pond; broken boiler; death of Mr Seller.
Journalist's interview; articles on the unemployed and House of Lords, Daily Chronicle; Contemporary Review; storm damage to local houses and shipping; plans for Christmas; night skies.
Violet's bank book missing in post; Jennings's death from typhoid fever; visit by Grandpa and Rose (William Mitten and his daughter); letter re (Annie) Besant in The Woman's Signal; tea and chess meetings begun; ARW writing a "very radical" article for a book.
Paper read at Cambridge University Natural Science Club conversazione, declines honorary degree; Violet's proposed Alpine trip; the Burton family; Violet's career; progress of "social economy" article for book on new reforms; local lecture on Oberammergau passion play.
Violet's expenses; visit to Cambridge; Mrs Myer's photography; ARW suffering from asthma and bronchitis; Aunt Rose's (Rose Mitten) health; "Merrie England"; daffodils at Lytchett.
Visit to Cambridge; Mrs Myer's photography and her son's ill health; "Merrie England"; daffodils at Lytchett.
Marking examination papers; news from her brother William; proposed joint visit by Violet and William; books read; travels of H O Forbes; chess meetings.
Mrs Fisher; geological excursions with grandpa (William Mitten) to Bournemouth and Swanage; chess meetings; The Clarion; proposed visits by aunts Flora and Bessie (Mitten) and two American geologists; proposed visit to Devonshire for ferns; writing for Harris; Violet's expenses.
Trip to Devon, ferns magnificent; letter from her brother William who is on holiday, plans for both to visit Parkstone; itinerary of Violet's planned trip to Switzerland and Italy.
Her proposed tour to Switzerland and Italy with Madame Lund's party, sending £10 towards expenses; arrangement for meeting her brother William and visiting Parkstone; description of ARW's and Ma's (Annie Wallace) ten days in Devon, wildflowers and ferns at Bolt Head, Salcombe and Brent; blue poppies and pink waterlily in flower in garden; two nearby houses including Mr Clement Reid's lodgings destroyed by fire.
The delights of Switzerland; visit by Dr and Mrs Wigglesworth, daughter of H. H. Higgins, from Liverpool, Dr W recently stabbed by a patient at the lunatic asylum, description of incident and surgery on his severed carotid artery; alpine plants collected for ARW by Clement Reid delayed in post and some dead; ARW writing an article on "some Darwinian heresies" for the Fortnightly and about to write another on "The expressiveness of speech"; plans to view Mars with his telescope; William (Violet's brother) back in Newcastle.
Recovery from damage to his eyesight, unable to read or write for previous month; Ma (Annie Wallace) reading papers to him, learning Poe's "Farewell to Earth" by heart to pass the time; visit of Miss Heaton from Natal with a trap-door spider for Violet, can supply a chameleon if wanted; "Clementina" [Clement Reid] has left for Corfe; rearrangement of furniture in study (sketch plan included).
Sending insect specimens, shells, Natal spider and its nest, and a live beetle to Violet for teaching purposes; Miss Heath; books for Violet's exams; plans for her "K.G." [kindergarten], selling "Nutwood" impossible as it brings in £50 a year, income and housing for the family after his death; bad news from California of ARW's brother (John) who has cancer, ARW suspects vaccination the cause; ARW's eyesight.
Recovery of his eyesight, one still inflamed, lost opportunity to view Mars with his telescope, accumulation of reading, writing and chess playing; discovery of a doctor (Turner) at Poole, who is a fellow orchid enthusiast; request for any spare plants if Violet should visit (orchid house) at Liverpool; purchase of educational books for her; unsuitability of Parkstone house for children, but Eleanor and her child may visit; sending two annotated numbers of the Vaccination Enquirer, impossibility of trusting doctors or officials on the subject.
Visit by Mrs Maclachlan and small son Hamish; Miss Macdonald expected; kindergarten books; gardening; completion of article on language; Harris leaving the Fortnightly, opinion of new editor; Violet should visit orchid nursery John Rowan & Co at Garston near Liverpool; Ma (Annie Wallace) going to Hurst for her mother's (Mrs Mitten) golden wedding celebrations; considering asking Clement Reid to Christmas dinner.
Travelling bags for herself and brother William, enclosing postal order; William at Inverkeithing, Scotland, working on lighting for a paper mill; hard frost and snow at Parkstone, Violet's skates; ARW has given Mrs Maclachlan, who studied Sanskrit and other languages at Girton, his paper on language to read.