Ɛpsilon

WCP620

Letter (WCP620.620)

[1]

[in ARW’s hand] 8 first letters from Darwin sent, for the Darwin Centenary – Cambridge.

FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM,

CAMBRIDGE.

Mar 23 1909

Dear Dr. Wallace,

I have received your packet1 safely containing the MS2 of your address to the Linnean Society last year and 8 autograph letters3 from Darwin.4 These are of the utmost interest and the committee will be very grateful to you for sending them. I am not sure whether you realise that the Darwin Celebration5 does not take place until the second half of June, when the exhibition of Darwiniana will be arranged in Christ’s College. The [2] letters will remain meanwhile under lock and key in my desk here — or, if you would prefer to have them back, I will send them and will ask for them again when the exhibition is being taken in hand.

If you really attach small importance to the manuscript of your address I wonder whether you would let me have it in exchange for a £5 note—I should price it very much in that case, and should have it nobly clad in the best morocco.

Yours very truly | Sydney C. Cockerell [signature]

1

Cockerell was referring to letter WCP3958.

https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3958

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
The eight letters which were in this envelope were published in the "Darwin Centenary Number" of Christ's College Magazine (Vol. XXIII, No. 70) in 1909. The letters in question were 7 sent by CD to ARW whilst he was in the Malay Archipelago and 1 sent to him in England by CD, which is dated 7 Mar [1867]. The letter sent by CD to ARW in response to ARW sending CD his Ternate essay in March/April 1858 is lost and would have probably been dated 13 July 1858. (WCP3958)
4
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). British naturalist, geologist and author, notably of On the Origin of Species (1859).
5
The Darwin celebration was held at Christ's College, Cambridge on 23 June 1909.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP620.620)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Truong, Michael [2011-07-08] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2024-11-11]

Please cite as “WCP620,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP620