Ɛpsilon

From A. R. Wallace   7 November 1875

The Dell, Grays, Essex.

Novr. 7th. 1875

Dear Darwin

Many thanks for your beautiful little volume on Climbing plants,—which forms a most interesting companion to your Orchids & Insectivorous Plants.1 I am sorry to see that you have not this time given us the luxury of cut edges.2

I am in the midst of printing and proof sheets,—which are wearisome in the extreme from the mass of names & statistics I have been obliged to introduce, & which will I fear make my book insufferably dull to all but zoological specialists.3

My trust is in my pictures & maps to catch the public.

Hoping yourself and all your family are quite well | Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace

1
Wallace’s name is not on the presentation list for Climbing plants 2d ed. (Appendix IV). He had also received presentation copies of Orchids and Insectivorous plants (Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV, and this volume, Appendix IV).
2
CD had urged his publisher, John Murray, to sell his books with the pages cut (see Correspondence vol. 20, letter to John Murray, 27 January [1872]).
3
Wallace was proofreading his book The geographical distribution of animals (Wallace 1876).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10247,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10247