Ɛpsilon

WCP4406

Letter (WCP4406.4673)

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Decr. 2nd. 1896

My dear Poulton1

Many thanks for your volume2 on Darwin3 received this morning. I have already read several chapters, and it seems to me to be admirably well done and to form the best account of Darwin & the Theory of Nat. Select. yet published, and especially adapted to interest the reading public.

I was much pleased yesterday to get the Circular from Galton4 with a letter, about the [2] suggested R. Soc. Biological Farm. It will be a disgrace to the wealthy Fellows of the Society — & there seems to be scores of them — if this is allowed to fail for want of funds. And it will be a disgrace to Darwin’s country if under any circumstances it is given up.

Yours very truly| Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

1
Poulton, Edward Bagnall (1856-1943). British entomologist. Hope Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College.
2
Poulton, E. B. 1896. Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection. London: Cassell & Co.
3
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
4
Galton, Francis (1822-1911). British biostatistician, polymath and founder of eugenics. One of the key figures in 19th Century research into heredity. Half-cousin of Charles Darwin.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP4406.4673)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Lord, Annette [2012-07-17] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2026-04-18]

Please cite as “WCP4406,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4406