Thanks Birch for his letter and tells him not to trouble about the photo of a moraine as his book is at the printers, although he could use it in a second edition.
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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
Thanks Birch for his letter and tells him not to trouble about the photo of a moraine as his book is at the printers, although he could use it in a second edition.
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Discusses William's letter of December 16th [1898] and his plans for winter in America, advice to go south to New Mexico; comments on his news of Mac; Mac's coal-measuring machine; plans for electric tram from Bournemouth to Poole, ARW objects to line through Parkstone; no electric light at Parkstone; damage to garden when drains connected; disadvantages of growing under glass; American papers Coming Nation, American Fabian and The Commonwealth; The Clarion, McGinnis, Robert Blatchford; plans to start work in about a years time on new edition of Wonderful Century and to start autobiography soon; Violet at the Schulz's, enclosing some verses by her and a card from her showing villages near Pössneck (neither present).
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Her birthday; drainage work; visit from Miss D'Arcy; Swanley Gardening College and gardening as a profession for women; news of her brother William who has sent the mounted head of a deer; Clarion and Chronicle.
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William's letter from America describing Mack's (sic) machine; misinterpretation of ARW's letter, he does not think William wasting his time in America but should move somewhere more interesting; ARW's health better, asthmatic cough going away; planting in garden; search for details of Wallace Scottish ancestors and Greenell family for autobiography, information from headmaster of Hertford Grammar School; fate of three family portraits, Mr and Mrs Gorringe, the current owners of one of the architect William Greenell refuse permission for it to be photographed, asks William to intercede on his return; Miss Evans wants American stamps; William's finances; Socialism in America.
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Her plans to return to England, possibility of visiting the Burrell's, German schools, future career; ARW researching family genealogy for his autobiography, Mrs Gorringe's refusal to supply a photograph of his great-great uncle William Greenell; local house sales; the Evanses, Miss Roberts; Mrs Symonds, Miss North.
William's letters from America, death of his horse, snowshoes, severe winter in New York; "Ardmore" still not sold; gathering material for autobiography, does William know whereabouts of steel seal and inscription on family ring, intends to visit a Dorset clergyman who owns a painting of a member of the Wallace family and if possible photograph for the book; bulbs and seeds ordered for garden; apparent loss of books and magazines in post; William's intention to start a business in Bournemouth [with Ma]); ARW writing on white men in the tropics for the New York Independent; writing on Craig's History of Ralahine, Irish cooperative farm 1831-33, to publicise a successful experiment in Socialism.
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Possibility of teaching posts for her in Cardiff or Oxted and school visits in Jena (Germany); sending her a copies of the Humanitarian, an Anglo-Russian paper and a German psychical paper; writing an article on an Irish cooperative farm to illustrate socialism and an article for the Fortnightly; Wonderful Century not yet in German; comparison of the Maha Bharata and the Iliad; unidentifiable beetle; English tea.
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