Ɛpsilon

To A. R. Wallace   24 March [1871]1

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

March 24

My dear Wallace

Very many thanks for the new Edit. of your Essays— Honour & glory to you for giving list of additions— It is grand as showing that our subject flourishes, your book coming to new Edit. so soon.2 My book also sells immensely; the Edit will, I believe, be 6500 copies.—3 I am tired with writing, for the load of letters which I receive is enough to make a man cry,—yet some few are curious & valuable. I got one today from Doctor on hair on backs of young weakly children, which afterwards falls off— Also on Hairy idiots.—4

But I am tired to death so Farewell | Thanks for your last letter.—5

There is very striking second article on my Book in Pall Mall.— The articles in Spectator have also interested me much.6

Again farewell | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to the new edition of Wallace’s essays (see n. 2, below).
2
CD refers to the second edition of Contributions to the theory of natural selection: a series of essays (Wallace 1871b), published in the second half of March 1871 (Publishers’ Circular, 1 April 1871, p. 211). CD’s copy is in the Darwin Library–Down. The first edition was published in 1870 (Wallace 1870).
3
CD refers to the third printing of Descent (see letter from John Murray, 22 March 1871).
4
CD refers to Philip Brookes Mason. See letter to P. B. Mason, 24 March [1871] and n. 1.
5
The last extant letter from Wallace is that of [15 March 1871]; CD had already acknowledged it (letter to A. R. Wallace, 16 March 1871).
6
CD refers to the second part of [Morley] 1871a, which appeared on 21 March 1871, and to a review in the Spectator, 11 and 18 March 1871, pp. 288–9 and 319–20.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 Beckenham] before del ‘Bromley.’
1.0 from Doctor] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-7616,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-7616