The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and
Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2), by James Marchant

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Title: Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Author: James Marchant

Release Date: June 7, 2005 [EBook #15997]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

Alfred Russel Wallace

Letters and Reminiscences

By

James Marchant

_With Two Photogravures and Eight Half-tone Plates_

IN TWO VOLUMES

Volume I

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1916

To the Memory of

ANNIE WALLACE

PREFACE

These two volumes consist of a selection from several thousands of
letters entrusted to me by the Wallace family and dating from the dawn
of Darwinism to the second decade of the twentieth century, supplemented
by such biographical particulars and comments as are required for the
elucidation of the correspondence and for giving movement and continuity
to the whole.

The wealth and variety of Wallace's own correspondence, excluding the
large collection of letters which he received from many eminent men and
women, and the necessity for somewhat lengthy introductions and many
annotations, have expanded the work to two (there was, indeed, enough
good material to make four) volumes. The family has given me unstinted
confidence in using or rejecting letters and reminiscences, and although
I have consulted scientific and literary friends, I alone must be blamed
for sins of omission or commission. Nothing has been suppressed in the
unpublished letters, or in any of the letters which appear in these
volumes, because there was anything to hide. Everything Wallace wrote,
all his private letters, could be published to the world. His life was
an open book--"no weakness, no contempt, dispraise, or blame, nothi