Ɛpsilon

WCP3566

Letter (WCP3566.3465)

[1]

Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon.

Monday [October 1878]1

Dear Bates2

Many thanks for your kind offer of assistance. I have not yet asked Sir R. Alcock,3 and as he is the only President of a Scientific Society writing to my signatures perhaps you will be so kind as to lay the enclosed memorial before him and ask him if he has any objection to favour me with his signature. Afterwards [2] if you have the opportunity within a week to obtain the signature of any person of importance, such as Lord Houghton4 or Major Gen. Rawlinson,5 I should be glad, but I do not care about men of less weight.

Believe me | yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

[3] P.S. I met D’Albertis6 by appointment in London & had a long talk about his book. He promised to go to the publisher with the MSS. & to say I was ready to undertake the Editorship. But he had some preliminary chapters to write & revision to do, which is no doubt now occupying him.

A. R. W

[4] WALLACE, Alfred Russel7

October 1878

A. R. Wallace8

1
See page 4.
2
Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892). British naturalist, explorer and close friend of ARW.
3
Alcock, Rutherford (1809-1897). British consul and diplomatist.
4
Milnes, Richard Monckton, 1st Baron Houghton (1809-1885). British politician and author.
5
Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke (1810-1895). First baronet. British East India Company army officer, politician and Assyriologist. President of the Royal Geographical Society 1871-73 and 1874-76.
6
D’Albertis, Luigi Maria (1841-1901). Italian naturalist and explorer, and the first person to chart the Fly River of Papua New Guinea in 1876.
7
In unknown handwriting.
8
In Bates’ handwriting?

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3566.3465)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Clerx, William [2012-08-16] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP3566,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3566