From Alfred Russel Wallace 20 January 1869
9, St. Mark’s Crescent | NW.
Jany. 20th. 1869
Dear Darwin
It will give me very great pleasure if you will allow me to dedicate my little book of Malayan Travels to you, although it will be far too small and unpretending a work to be worthy of that honour.1 Still, I have done what I can to make it a vehicle for communicating a taste for the higher branches of Natural History, and I know that you will judge it only too favourably.
We are in the middle of the 2nd. Vol. and if the printers will get on, shall be out next month.2
Have you seen in the last Number of the “Quarterly Journal of Science”, the excellent remarks on Fraser’s article on Nat. Selection failing as to Man?3 In one page it gets to the heart of the question & I have written to the Editor to ask who the Author is.4
My friend Spruce’s paper on Palms is to be read tomorrow evening at the “Linnæan”.5 He tells me it contains a discovery which he calls “alternation of function.” He found a clump of Geonema all of which were females, and the next year the same clump were all males! He has found other facts analogous to this, & I have no doubt the subject is one that will interest you.6
Hoping you are pretty well, and are getting on steadily with your next volumes,—and with kind regards to Mrs. Darwin and all your circle,7
Believe me | Dear Darwin | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace
P.S. Have you seen the admirable article in “The Guardian”! on Lyell’s Principles? It is most excellent & liberal. It is written by Revd. Geo. Buckle, of Tiverton Vicarage, Bath, who I met at Norwich and found a thoroughly scientific & liberal parson.8 Perhaps you have heard that I have undertaken to write an article for the Quarterly! on the same subject, to make up for that on “Modern Geology” last year not mentioning Sir C Lyell.9 Really what with the Tories passing radical reform bills & the Church periodicals advocating Darwinianism, the Millenium must be at hand.10
A R W.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Anon. 1869b. The alleged failure of natural selection in the case of man. Quarterly Journal of Science 21: 152–3.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.
[Geikie, Archibald.] 1868a. Sir Roderick Murchison and modern schools of geology. [Review of Roderick Murchison’s Siluria: a history of the oldest rocks in the British Isles and other countries. 4th edition.] Quarterly Review 125: 188–217.
[Greg, William Rathbone.] 1868b. On the failure of ‘natural selection’ in the case of man. Fraser’s Magazine 78: 353–62.
Lyell, Charles. 1867–8. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 10th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Mitchell, Sally, et al. eds. 1988. Victorian Britain: an encyclopedia. New York, London: Garland Publishing
Murchison, Roderick Impey. 1867. Siluria: a history of the oldest rocks in the British Isles and other countries; with sketches of the origin and distribution of native gold, the general succession of geological formations, and changes of the earth’s surface. 4th edition including ‘The Silurian system’. London: John Murray.
North, John S. 1997. The Waterloo directory of English newspapers and periodicals, 1800–1900. 10 vols. Waterloo, Ontario: North Waterloo Academic Press.
Notebooks: Charles Darwin’s notebooks, 1836–1844. Geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries. Transcribed and edited by Paul H. Barrett et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the British Museum (Natural History). 1987.
Spruce, Richard. 1869. Palmae Amazonicae, sive enumeratio palmarum in itinere suo per regiones Americae aequatoriales lectarum. [Read 21 January 1869.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 11 (1871): 65–183.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1869a. The Malay Archipelago: the land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co.
Summary
Dedication of Malay Archipelago to CD.
Comments on scientific papers.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6561
- From
- Alfred Russel Wallace
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, St Mark’s Crescent, 9
- Source of text
- DAR 106: B73–4
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6561,” accessed on 16 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6561.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17