Broadstone, Wimborne
Octr. 26th. 1906
Messrs Macmillan & Co 1
Dear Sir
I enclose you a note of the material available for work on Dr. Richard Spruce’s2 travels and Botanical explorations in South America. (Please return, with the two enclosed letters.)
There are also about 20 careful pencil portraits or Indians of the Rio Negro, Uaupés and Orinoco — and also a few outline drawings of landscapes &c. implements & Rock-inscribed picture writing.
Dr. Spruce had a world-wide reputation as a botanist;— and, as an observer and writer he [2] was in my opinion of the highest rank.
It is as one of Dr. Spruce’s most intimate periods that I am willing to act as Editor of his work, though it will involve much labour, & some expense in the copying or type-writing of the letters & journals. Mr. Slater3 (of Malton Yorks.) the Executor, will also require some share in the work.
Will you please inform me as soon as convenient, if you are inclined to undertake the publication, & will give [3] the same Royalty as in the other books you have published for me.
Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3395.3363)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Dr. Richard Spruce’s1 "Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes: Being Records of Travel on the Amazon, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Cassiquari, Huallaga and Pastaga; as also to the Cataracts of the Orinoco and along the Eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Equador, during the years 1849-1864.2
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MSS. Materials.
1. A MSS. nearly ready for the press of the Lower Amazon - with very interesting chapters on Botany and Geology, and an discussion of the warlike women of the Amazon, showing that the accounts were founded on fact. (About 80,000 words)
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2. The original Journal of his voyages on the Rio Negro, Uaupes, Cassiquari and Orinoco. (Dec 184950 to March 1855) and voyage up the Solimoěus to Tarapoto in Peru (June 1850).
(About 120,000 words).
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[2] 3. Residence at Tarapoto from June 1855 to March 1857 Journals lost? But a good many notes and some Letters to Sir William Hooker3 & Mr. George Bentham4 at Kew.
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4. Voyage from Tarapoto up the Marañon, Pastaga and Bombonasa, and through the Forest of Canelos to Baños in Ecuador- occupying 101- days — full and very interesting.
About 8,000 words.
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5. Of the 5 years journeys and Residence in the Andes, & coasts of Peru & Ecuador – there are only a very condensed diary – many letters, a Report on the Cinchona forests, and a quantity of notes – but only an abstract of this part of his J Travels can be given.
About 30 4 page letters at Kew.
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[3] Dr. Spruce was well known among the botanists of Europe and America as a most energetic collector and acute observer, while for the last ten years of his life he was held to be the greatest authority on a group which was his special favourite- the Hepadicae.
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Both Sir Joseph Hooker5and Sir Clements Markham6 are anxious that Spruce’s Journals & Letters or selections of them, should be published, as stated in letters from them, enclosed herewith.
Alfred R. Wallace [signature]
Octr. 1906
Status: Draft transcription [Enclosure (WCP3395.5109)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP3395,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on