WCP2320

Letter (WCP2320.2210)

[1]

Dresden

May 20th 1875

Th[e][?] Natural Hist[ory] Museum1

My dear Sir

It is long since I wrote to you, and I should have done so again, were it not that I always hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you in London or elsewhere, and still now I hope that this will be the case before long.

Having heard that you publish a work on the geogr[aphical]. distrib[ution]. of animals2 I beg to ask you whether it will be convenient to you to publish it at the same time in January or not. In the first case I should be willing to translate your work as I translated already your Malay [2] Arch[ipelago]3 and your Contributions4. It[?] would be well, that the two editions could appear at the same time. Will you, in the case my proposition is convenient to you, make known to me your conditions, that I may try to find an editor here in January, and will you tell me something about the size and content of your work?5

With best compliments | Yours very truly | A B Meyer6 [signature]

[3]7

1
Adolf Meyer became Director of the Natural History Museum in Dresden, Germany, in 1874.
2
Wallace, A. R. (1876). The Geographical Distribution of Animals; 2 vols. Macmillan & Co., London.
3
In 1869 Wallace published The Malay Archipelago. Meyer produced a translation into German, Der Malayische Archipel, in the same year. Wallace, A. R. (1869). The Malay Archipelago, 2 vols, Macmillan and Co., London. And, Wallace, A. R. (1869). Der Malayische Archipel, Autorisirte deutsche Ausgabe von Adolf Bernhard Meyer. George Westermann, Braunschweig. See Howes, Hilary (2014). Adolf Bernhard Meyer, Alfred Russel Wallace and A. C. Haddon. 126-146. In: Ellis, Heather, and Kirchberger, Ulrike (Eds). Anglo-German Scholarly Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century, Brill, Leiden and Boston. 237 [p. 128].
4
Wallace, A. R. (1870). Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays. London & New York: Macmillan & Co. i-xvi, 1-299. And, Wallace, A. R. (1870). Beiträge zur natürlichen Zuchtwahl; eine Reiche von Essais. Autorisirte deutsche Ausgabe von Adolf Bernhard Meyer. Eduard Besold, Erlangen, i- xviii, 1-434.
5
Wallace accepted Meyer's offer. Wallace, A. R. (1876). Die geographische Verbreitung der Thiere: nebst einer studie über die Verwandtschaften der Lebenden und ausgestobenen Faunen in ihrer Beziehung zu den früheren Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche. Autorisirte deutsche Ausgabe von A. B. Meyer. R. v. Zahn, Dresden. 2 vols.
6
There is a British Museum stamp in red ink below the signature.
7
Text at the top of this page in another hand reads "A B Meyer".

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2320.2210)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2015-04-08] Transcription checked by Benny, Ruth [2015-04-08] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP2320,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2320