WCP368

Letter (WCP368.368)

[1]1

Ternate2

Sept. 6th. 1858.

My dear Fanny3

In the box which will probably reach Mr Stevens4 two months after this, is one of Dumas' best romances "La Reine Margot"5 wh[ich]. was given me by a friend. It is a wonderful story about the massacre of Bartholomew6 &c. &c. &c. & will help you to pass some long evenings or solitary hours.

I hope you will not think of going back to Conduit St.7 now you have once left it. Thomas' country connexion is likely to increase & be more certain & more profitable than the portrait work besides that it is so much less harassing.

I hope G. C. S.8 will get married at last. [2] He has written me a lot about the ladies in question. Let me know how the affair goes on when you write.

With best love | I remain | Dear Fanny | Your affectionate Brother | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Mrs Sims

Dear Thomas9

I have just seen in the Athenaeum10 an account of Claudet[']s11 great discovery of the Stereomonoscope12 though I cannot clearly see why it sh[oul]d produce the effects described. Of course you have seen it. Is the effect as good & deceptive as in [3] the common Stereoscope13 — What a grand thing to throw two magnified pictures on a transparent screen & show views & figures of the size & solidity of life! to a large audience. Can it be done? I sh[oul]d think the spectator must be within a certain limited range both of distance & direction to get the proper effect.

The photographic compositions by Rylander14 puzzle me. How does he combine his negatives without showing the joints, or are they touched up afterwards to cover them. Again the Photographic Engravings15 are all new to me. Are they really good?

Now I have to recommend you a periodical "The Family Herald"16 only [4] 1d. per. week. You probably know it & perhaps as I did at first, despise it. I took however an odd volume to New Guinea with me & of course was obliged to read it every line, — & what was my astonishment to find in the leading articles a series of essays on the greatest questions of the days which for wit, true philosophy & novelty, are in my opinion unsurpassed in our whole periodical literature.

Besides these is a host of useful matter & lots of amusing & clever tales for odd half hours. Do take it, & when I return I will buy the back volumes wh[ich]. are double price, for the sake of the leading articles. Have you been to hear Spurgeon?17 — the Athenaeum cut him up as a regular ranter.18 Is it your friend Mr. Fry19 who is publishing the Photographs of living celebrities? Can’t you get a set to copy?

Yours affectionately | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Tho[ma]s Sims Esq.

A later annotation, presumably by ARW's son, William Greenell Wallace, "Not copied WGW" appears in pencil in the top left-hand corner of the page, separated from the text by a line under the note.
Ternate, an island in North Maluku province, Indonesia, off the largest island in the Maluccas [Maluku] group, Halmahera island, formerly known as Djailolo or Jailolo (known to ARW as Gilolo) (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2018. Ternate Island. Island, Indonesia. Encyclopaedia Britannica. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Ternate-Island> [accessed 30 December 2018]).
Sims (née Wallace), Frances ("Fanny") (1812-1893). Sister of ARW; teacher.
Stevens, Samuel (1817-1899). British entomologist and dealer in natural history specimens; agent of ARW.
Dumas, Alexandre, père. 1845. La Reine Margot. Paris, France: Garnier frères.
The massacre of St Bartholomew's Day (24 August), took place on 24-25 August 1572 in Paris, during which French Protestants (Huguenots) were slaughtered by Roman Catholics (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2019. Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. French History [1572]. Encyclopaedia Britannica. < https://www.britannica.com/event/Massacre-of-Saint-Bartholomews-Day> [accessed 10 January 2019]).
Conduit Street: a street in central London, running off Regent Street in what was then a fashionable area with many shops (Edward Walford. 1878. Regent Street and Piccadilly In: Old and New London, 6 vols. London, UK: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. [vol. 4, pp. 246-262]). 7, Conduit Street was the home of Fanny and Thomas Sims from May 1855, as identified by van Wyhe and Rookmaaker from an advertisement in The Atlas which appeared from late July to late October 1855 (The British Library Board. 2018. The Atlas. 28 July 1855. No. 1524. [p. 15]. Findmypast. <https://www.findmypast.co.uk>).
Silk, George Charles (1822-1910). Friend of ARW since childhood; secretary to the Archdeacon of Middlesex.
Sims, Thomas (1826-1910). Brother-in-law of ARW; photographer.
The Athenaeum, a British weekly literary magazine in existence between 1828 and 1921 (Graham, W. J. 1930. The Weekly Journal of Belles-Lettres. 311-344. In: Graham, W. J. English Literary Periodicals. New York, NY, USA: T. Nelson & Sons. [pp. 317-320]).
Claudet, Antoine François Jean (1797-1867). French-born photographer and inventor.
See: The Athenaeum. 24 April 1858, Scientific. Societies: Royal. [issue no. 1591, pp. 532-533]: "15 April — "Mr Claudet presented a new optical instrument of his invention called the Stereomonoscope, by which, as its name implies, a sigle picture produces the stereoscopic illusion".".
Stereoscope, an instrument creating one image from two pictures giving the illusion of the vision of an object as if seen with the eyes (Oxford University Press. 2019. stereoscope, n. Oxford English Dictionary. <http://www.oed.com/>).
Rijlander, Oscar Gustave (1813-1875). Swedish-born artist and photographer, who pioneered combination printing.
Photographic Engravings (Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 2019. Photographic and photoglyphic engraving. Photographic processes. <https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/photographic-processes> [accessed 2 January 2019]).
The Family Herald or Useful Information and Amusement for the Million, a British weekly paper in existence from 1842, achieving very wide circulation by the 1850s (Cox, H., and Mowatt, S. 2014. Revolutions in Grub Street. A History of Magazine Publishing in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [p. 8]).
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892). British Baptist preacher and author.
See: The Athenaeum. 26 December 1857. Reviews, The Saint and his Saviour. By the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. (J. S. Virtue.) New Park Street Pulpit. By the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. (Paul.). [issue no. 1574, , pp. 1613-1615], for reviews of Spurgeon, C. H. 1857. The Saint and his Saviour; or the progress of the soul in the knowledge of Jesus. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton, and Spurgeon, C. H. 1856-1862. The New Park Street Pulpit, containing sermons preached and revised by C. H. Spurgeon, 7 vols. London, UK: ?Alabaster & Passmore. [vol. 3, 1857].
Perhaps a reference to [Maull, H., and Polyblank, G. H.]. [1856-1859]. Photographic Portraits of Living celebrities; executed by Maull and Polyblank; with biographical notices by E. Walford [and others], Vol. 1. London, UK: Maull & Polyblank; W. Kent & Co., with text by Herbert Fry for the first four of the original monthly issues of 1856 (Wyhe, J. van and Rookmaaker, K. 2015. Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters from the Malay Archipelago. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [p. 177]) or to to [George] Herbert Watkins's serial, Fry, H. [1857-1858]. National Gallery of Photographic Portraits, 16 numbers. London, UK: N.S, with text by Herbert Fry, reviewed in The Athaeneum in August 1857 (Hannavy, J. (ed.). 2007. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, 2 vols. New York, NY, USA, and London, UK: Routledge. [vol. 1]).

Please cite as “WCP368,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP368