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Darwin Correspondence Project

To A. R. Wallace   24 March [1871]1

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

March 24

My dear Wallace

Very many thanks for the new Edit. of your Essays— Honour & glory to you for giving list of additions— It is grand as showing that our subject flourishes, your book coming to new Edit. so soon.2 My book also sells immensely; the Edit will, I believe, be 6500 copies.—3 I am tired with writing, for the load of letters which I receive is enough to make a man cry,—yet some few are curious & valuable. I got one today from Doctor on hair on backs of young weakly children, which afterwards falls off— Also on Hairy idiots.—4

But I am tired to death so Farewell | Thanks for your last letter.—5

There is very striking second article on my Book in Pall Mall.— The articles in Spectator have also interested me much.6

Again farewell | C. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the reference to the new edition of Wallace’s essays (see n. 2, below).
2
CD refers to the second edition of Contributions to the theory of natural selection: a series of essays (Wallace 1871b), published in the second half of March 1871 (Publishers’ Circular, 1 April 1871, p. 211). CD’s copy is in the Darwin Library–Down. The first edition was published in 1870 (Wallace 1870).
3
CD refers to the third printing of Descent (see letter from John Murray, 22 March 1871).
4
CD refers to Philip Brookes Mason. See letter to P. B. Mason, 24 March [1871] and n. 1.
5
The last extant letter from Wallace is that of [15 March 1871]; CD had already acknowledged it (letter to A. R. Wallace, 16 March 1871).
6
CD refers to the second part of [Morley] 1871a, which appeared on 21 March 1871, and to a review in the Spectator, 11 and 18 March 1871, pp. 288–9 and 319–20.

Bibliography

Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.

Summary

On the flourishing sales of their respective books. Mentions reviews of Descent in Pall Mall Gazette [21 Mar 1871] and in the Spectator [11 Mar 1871, pp. 288–9; 18 Mar 1871, pp. 319–20].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-7616
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Alfred Russel Wallace
Sent from
Down
Source of text
The British Library (Add MS 46434)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7616,” accessed on 26 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7616.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
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