Inspection of houses and Violet's education and expenses.
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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
Inspection of houses and Violet's education and expenses.
Violet's studies; work in garden; various visitors.
ARW's forthcoming lecture in Liverpool; gardening; her brother William's affairs.
ARW's lectures at Liverpool, York and Darlington; award of DCL from Oxford; dining with the Hookers; Violet's studies.
ARW marking exam papers; Violet's expenses and studies; family matters.
His first public lecture, rehearsals at Loughton and Farncombe useful, cut sections following advice of Mr Marshall, enclosing a newspaper and press cuttings (not present), report on lecture brief because today is election day; tour along Hudson and to West Point Military college with Mr Browne, spectacular scenery including basalt cliffs "The Palisades" along the river (with ink sketch of cliffs with a sailing boat on the river below); colourful autumn foliage; details of hotel food including "shaker apple-sauce"; tram cars in Boston; meeting with Spiritualist doctor Nichols, invited to visit; plans to visit botanist Asa Gray at Cambridge tomorrow; discovery of a chess club and plans to play.
A séance at which he observed the ghosts of an Indian man and a baby; travel by sleeping-car from Baltimore; white and black populations in Boston and Baltimore.
Detailed description of a séance in Boston at which spirits including those of an American Indian and a baby apparently materialised; another séance at which spirits of ARW's Australian cousin Algernon Wilson and a woman who had met ARW at Kate Cook's apparently materialised; floral decorations at a dinner in Boston hosted by John M Forbes with guests including Asa Gray, O W Holmes and James Russell Lowell, sending Violet a menu; sending a poem suitable for reciting cut from a magazine; beauty of the city of Washington; lack of lecture engagements, may go to Canada; letter to be forwarded to Violet's aunt Fanny (Sims).
Enclosing press cuttings (not present) apparently reporting a social occasion hosted by spiritualist Mrs Hooker, sister of Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs Beecher Stowe, at which ARW was introduced to about 50 people; lectures to local Anthropological societies; lack of paying lectures, if none booked in California will not be able to afford to go there as fare is £50; only two forthcoming engagements in Canada; spending time visiting Museums and libraries and writing for American newspapers and for Harris; expense of hotel; changeable weather; detailed description of the "most beautiful" Capitol building and comparison with British House of Commons; instructions to send letters via agent Williams; hopes Violet is reading and studying well.
From Niagara Falls (Canada), describing the partly frozen falls and surrounding area; ferns entirely absent, probably taken by tourists, every rock and stump covered with (carved) names.
No summary available.
No summary available.
The weather and the seasons and that ARW has not seen a single place he should like to live in. He writes of "Big Trees" including Redwoods and tells of his plans to visit Santa Cruz and Lake Tahoe before coming home in late August. ARW also mentions that he has been lecturing on Spiritualism in San Francisco.