Ɛpsilon

WCP3958

Letter (WCP3958.3898)

[1]

Old Orchard,

Broadstone,

Wimborne

March 22nd 1909

Dear Mr Cockerell1

I have much pleasure in sending you the MSS. of my "Address" to the Linn. Soc. at the Jubilee last July.2

But as you think such a mere trifle as that worth showing, I send you also the 8 Early letters3 I received from Darwin4 while in the Malay Archipelago, which, though all but one have been printed, may be of interest — certainly of very much more interest than my modern MSS.

[2] Please acknowledge the receipt; and I shall be obliged if you will keep them in your charge till the meeting and then return them to me.

I am glad to hear that your brother5 may possibly be coming to the Centenary & I hope if so he will come here & stay a week end with us & talk over old times.

He has written to me not infrequently & sent me his numerous papers &c. but I have been so busy the last few [3] years that I fear I have not always replied to him as I should have done. He seems to have become quite an American, & to have been fortunate in finding such a healthy district to settle in.

Yours very truly | Alfred R Wallace [signature]

1
Cockerell, Sydney Carlyle (1867-1962). British bibliophile and collector of medieval manuscripts. Celebrated Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1909-1937.
2
Published in The Linnean Society. 1908. The Darwin-Wallace Celebration held on Thursday, 1st July, 1908, by The Linnean Society of London. London: Taylor and Francis, pp. 5 -11. It is ARW's reply to the President on being awarded the Society's Darwin-Wallace medal at the bi-centenary celebration of the joint reading, in 1858, of his and Charles Darwin's joint paper "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection."
3
See WCP3958_E7720, which appears to be an enclosure to this or to the packet of letters sent.
4
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
5
Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (1866-1948). Brother of Sydney Carlyle Cockerell. British-born American zoologist, taxonomist, and museum curator. ARW referred him as the 'Slugophilite'.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP3958.3898)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Bevan, Deniz [2014-04-28] Transcription checked by Lucas, Paula [2020-03-19] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Enclosure (WCP3958.7720)

[1]1

The first 8 letters I received from Darwin2— (while in the Malay Archipelago)

____________________

NB. The MSS. of my Paper sent to Darwin and printed in the Journal of the Linnean Society,3 was not returned to me, and seems to be lost. The proofs with the MSS. were perhaps sent to Sir Charles Lyell,4 or to the Secretary of the Linn. Soc. & may some day be found. It was written on thin foreign note paper.

Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

1
See WCP3958.3898, letter from ARW to Sydney Cockerell, 22 March 1909, to which this envelope was probably an enclosure.
2
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
3
Wallace, A. R. 1858. On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society: Zoology. 3(9): 53-62.
4
Lyell, Charles (1797-1875). British lawyer and geologist.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Enclosure (WCP3958.7720)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Knott, Peter [2019-05-20] Transcription checked by Lucas, Paula [2020-03-19] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP3958,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3958