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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
A spiritualist pamphlet written by ARW and published by the Spiritualists' National Union, asking him to autograph an enclosed copy (not present) to be included in a collection of similar pamphlets the writer intends to have bound; wishing him good health and happiness.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday; various other matters.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday and on his achievements.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday.
An article about his views of the past, present and future in The Star; Orridge's father's own foresight in predicting events; enclosing two plans for workers' homes and pensions and a booklet of his (Orridge's) own inventions (not present); Orridge's patented coal burning smokeless stove; wishing ARW many more years of peace and comfort (on his 90th birthday).
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday, mentioning his connections with the Usk, Neath and Swansea districts and offering a copy of Phillips' book The Romantic History of the Monastic Libraries of Wales, Celtic and Mediaeval Periods..
Reminding ARW of the ARW's stay at his guest house twenty years earlier, and congratulating him on reaching his eighty-ninth (sic) birthday.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday; referring to the interview with ARW ("The Spectre of Poverty", 6 Jan 1913) published in the Daily News & Leader and reminding ARW that they had met forty years earlier at a meeting in London with Dr Nichols and others; the writer's life and wages in fifty years spent as a gentleman's servant, bringing up a family without debt, his current pension of five shillings a week; abstinence from alcohol and tobacco; proposal to walk to Poole to visit ARW, giving details of other long walks he has done about the country lecturing on teetotalism and selling his booklet A View from the Servant's Hall, chopping wood, picking oakum etc. to pay his way; asking if ARW would pay him to travel the country selling his (ARW's) book [Social Environment and Moral Progress] March 1913) and preaching "Personal Self Home Rule", Mr Crofton Gore of Bristol will give him a reference; a poem "Courage, Brother" setting out his personal rule of life; his pamphlet "Great Britons [sic] Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" which he proposes to sell with ARW's book; his great-grandfather's estate in Galway and Dublin; father's death from drink and mother's long life supported by her son; most poverty traceable to drink; apologies for the quality of his writing paper.
Says that the interview with ARW published in the D.N.& L. ("The Spectre of Poverty", 6 Jan 1913) has inspired him with hope. The postcard shows a printed anti-war text enentitled "Moral Force Superior to Dreadnoughts, Revolution by Ridicule" by George Allen and E. B. Reeves.
Littledale discusses the occasions he treated ARW for ailments, including a case of eczema.
Asking for ARW's autograph.
An article about him in that day's Daily Telegraph, strongly disagreeing with ARW's apparent belief that a man's estate should be administered by the Government and that he should have no right to leave his money to his heirs.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday; praising ARW's Malay Archipelago he read while on an ethnographic expedition in Malaysia in 1911; would like to visit ARW later in the year.
Congratulating ARW on his 90th birthday.
With best wishes (on ARW's 90th birthday).
Sending congratulations and good wishes on ARW's 90th birthday.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday.
Congratulating ARW on reaching his 90th birthday.