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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
Receipt of ARW's December letters, acquaintance with A M Moss at the Lancs & Cheshire entomological society, Moss's collections and paintings; The New Age; asking for copies of "Intensive Agriculture".
ARW's letter to Dr Huber; lack of information on insect collecting opportunities in Para, suspects trade rivalry; plans to leave Brazil after two and a half years there, details of repeated theft and loss of packages in the mails and his valuable hand-made collecting case sent from Tring by Dr Jordan at Bahia customs house; misunderstanding with Mr May over house rent and purchase of collections; surprise at news of A M Moss collecting in the Andes; butterflies sent to Tring made £53.12.00 but cannot trust beetle collection to a carrier, is making boxes for them; plans to go to British Guiana and collect on the Demerara or Berbice rivers, cannot afford to go to the Andes because of responsibility for Mary and Elsie [wife and child]; disagrees with ARW's views on labour and intellect, quotes Thoreau and from an ARW letter; necessity of broad study and experience of life, nobility of agricultural labour; admires some articles in the N.A. (New Age).
Delay in leaving Brazil due to photographing local families, problems of portrait photograph; reconsidering move (to British Guiana), correspondence with Mr May and Mr Rodway of Georgetown, Barbados, recent changes in laws on immigration into British colonies, possibility of going to Victoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil as living cheaper and postal service more reliable than in Rio state; nature of entomologists, not all collectors lovers of nature, quotes a John Donne verse (probably as quoted in Walden by Thoreau) and Emerson on man and nature; collection for Prof Poulton now complete; recent collections of moths and butterflies including an unknown moth and probable Zeonia and a Nymphalinae butterflies (all described in some detail); long local drought affecting crops and food prices; gardening; asks for news of British parliament and budget; unemployment relief, have Mr Mill's [J S Mill] and ARW's schemes been tried; asks for copies of "Intensive Culture" published by The Clarion and New Age article on "The Art of homemaking" by Walter S. Sparrow.
Letter from "that wretched T.O.", with thanks for letters and three copies of The New Age, other copies failed to arrive, presumed stolen, hopes promised copy of Sir Arthur Cotton's tract on agriculture will arrive safely, no news of Velox photographic paper ordered via Mr May; belated news of King's death through local Germans; Paulhan's flight from London to Manchester, speculation on when public air travel will be possible and its effects; hopes for the arrival of Socialism; detailed descriptions of the appearance and behaviour of birds and animals visiting the garden including parakeets, orioles, toucans and callistes, many eating oranges, wrens attacking a snake, woodpeckers apparently eating pawpaws or insects within them; opossums, bats taking food from the table and cooking stove, fruit scarce in forest; night temperatures below freezing, large variation of day and night temperature; cannot consider joining Captain Boynton at the Orinoco because considering move to British Guiana or Victoria (Brazil); has practiced dentistry on Mary [wife] and filled several cavities; good view of Halley's comet; Postscript on a smaller sheet of paper asking cost of land in Hampshire, Devonshire and Somerset and whether peaches can be grown there; where filberts will grow successfully (in Britain); Windermere; asks for news of any land available on the Warwickshire Avon.
Thanking ARW for the pamphlet (by Sir Arthur Cotton) on intensive agriculture which has arrived safely along with copies of The New Age, is delighted with it; gives details of his gardening methods and previous year's crops of oats and potatoes, potatoes this year destroyed by ants; adds to description of Calliste birds given in last letter (see WP1/6/5) and corrects description of Toucan; reminds ARW he wants details of prices, soil, temperature and rainfall of land in Devonshire.
Delay in plans to leave for another part of Brazil as wife Mary expecting a child in March and no replies (re suitability of the area) from correspondents in Espirito Santo, Victoria; has collected many new beetle species though butterflies scarcer than before, will risk posting a box of Lepidoptera to Mr May in Rio; considering moving to Caravellas or Peruhype, quotes a letter from Mr Scofield recommending both areas as ideal sites for insect collecting, will write to [Eugenis] Reiche about housing; describes capture and photographing of a sloth which bit him through the thumb, sloth's fur infested with many small moths similar to Depressaria; thanks for copies of N.A. (The New Age; wheat planted according to Cotton's methods thriving.