Ɛpsilon

WCP3388

Letter (WCP3388.3356)

[1]1

Parkstone, Dorset.

March 24th. 1900.

Messrs Macmillan & Co.2

Dear Sirs

I send you today by Parcel Post, the complete MSS. & proofs — of my "Studies".3 Also some Wood Blocks I purchased of Chatto & Windus, to illustrate Chap. 8 Vol. I. — The cut at p. 101 of my Malay Archipelago,4 will also be wanted to illustrate this chapter, the original one being too large.

I have had some difficulty in getting the two volumes approximately equal in size, but have done so by putting 7 chapters in volume II. under the heading — "Educational" — which may be thus classed as forming [2] part of "Social Science".

Even now there will be a difference of 30 pages or more, but part of this will be made up by a full Index in Vol. II., and perhaps you can instruct the printers to begin each Chapter in the second volume an inch lower in the page than in the first volume.

Also print the whole-page plates, which are almost all in the first volume, on as thin paper as possible.

The photos. of Natives (veddalis) of which I have not yet got the proofs will come in chapter [3] 21. vol. I. where they are referred to in the MSS.

Will you please arrange with the printer, when he begins sending me proofs to go on continuously as stoppages for a week or two during the progress of the work are very annoying & confusing.

There is one more point I wish to suggest. Can you have a new uniform cover for my four other books & for "Studies", so as to form a uniform set, — the lettering on backs being also so arrayed as to look uniform. Could you also have the monogram used in "Geog. Distribution"5 on each volume, with the title round [4] it? I rather think a smooth surface cloth will look better.

I am still waiting for a photo. from Dr. Guilemard6 of a Papuan for chap. 20. — but if he cannot find it when required, we shall have to get it from Stanford.7 (Australasia. V. II. p. 399)8 Also I may get one or two more photos. from America, but they will come in Vol. II.

I enclose a list of subjects of Chapters.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

1
Oval stamp, “F. M.” and date stamp “26 MAR 1900”.
2
Macmillan, Frederick Orridge (1851-1936). Eldest son of Daniel Macmillan, a founding partner in the bookselling and publishing firm of Macmillan & Co.
3
Wallace, A. R. 1900. Studies scientific and social. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. And New York: The Macmillan Co. Two volumes.
4
Wallace, A. R. 1890. The Malay Archipelago: The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
5
Wallace, A. R. 1876. The geographical distribution of animals; with a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface. London: Macmillan & Co. Two volumes.
6
Guillemard, Francis Henry Hill (1852-1933). First reader of geography at Cambridge University, a traveller, writer and naturalist.
7
Stanford, Edward (1827-1904). British publisher, mapmaker and bookseller.
8
Wallace, A. R. ed. 1879. Australasia. Stanford’s compendium of geography and travel: based on Hellwald’s ‘Die Erde und ihre Völker’. Edited and extended by Alfred R. Wallace, F.R.G.S., Author of the ‘Malay Archipelago,’ ‘Geographical distribution of animals,’ etc. With Ethnological appendix by A.H. Keane, M.A.I. London: Edward Stanford (Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel).

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3388.3356)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Linden, Tess [2013-08-19] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-08-19] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP3388,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3388