Ɛpsilon

WCP4204

Letter (WCP4204.4259)

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

August 28th. 1890

T. D. A. Cockerell1 Esq.

Dear Sir

Your letter2 of Ap. 26th. has remained unanswered because in it you stated you were coming to England in May, & thus it got put aside, and as I have been much occupied it has been overlooked till now.

The proposal you make of a collection of all the recorded facts bearing upon the various problems of Darwinism3 is a good one. Such a body of facts would be most valuable [2] to naturalists, — but I question whether it would pay for its publication. I feel sure my publishers would not agree to "weight" my book with such a mass of additional matter. The only thing therefore would be to publish the materials separately, as Darwin4 did his "Animals & Plants under Domestication".5 I hope you will do this yourself, as you have evidently a taste for this kind of work & would [3] do it well. It would however be a tremendous task, as it would involve wading through the whole literature of Natural History for the last 20 years.

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R.Wallace [signature]

1
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'.
2
The letter has not been found.
3
Wallace, A. R. 1889. Darwinism: an exposition of the theory of natural selection with some of its applications. London & New York: Macmillan & Co.
4
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
5
Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. Two volumes.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP4204.4259)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Chudasama Mahmud, Aisha [2012-07-11] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Published letter (WCP4204.6898)

[1] [p. 872]

The proposal you make of a collection of all the recorded facts bearing upon the various problems of Darwinism is a very good one. Such a body of facts would be most valuable to naturalists, but I question whether it would pay for its publication. I feel sure my publishers would not agree to "weight" my book with such a mass of additional matter. The only thing, therefore, would be to publish the materials separately, as Darwin did his "Animals and Plants under Domestication." I hope you will do this yourself, as you have evidently a taste for this kind of work... It would, however, be a tremendous task, as it would involve wading through the whole literature of natural history for the last twenty years.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Published letter (WCP4204.6898)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Sherwood, Danni [2020-07-28] Transcription checked by Lo, Yen [2020-10-30]

Please cite as “WCP4204,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4204