The Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project

"I begin to feel rather dissatisfied with a mere local collection - little is to be learnt by it. I sh^d like to take some one family, to study thoroughly - principally with a view to the theory of the origin of species. By that means I am strongly of opinion that some definite results might be arrived at..."
[From a letter sent by Wallace to Henry Walter Bates in 1847]

"..Wallace has to be one of the most interesting people in the history of science" Sherrie Lyons

Welcome to the Wallace Correspondence Project's (WCP) website. This project, based at the Natural History Museum, London, aims to locate, digitize, transcribe and interpret all surviving letters to and from the great 19th century naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Wallace has many claims to fame, not least being that he is the co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the process of evolution by natural selection. For more information about his life and work CLICK HERE.

Electronic scans of Wallace's letters will be made available on this website via the project's online database soon after we obtain them.  We believe that it is better that they are made accessible to users at the earliest possible opportunity, rather than having to wait for further work (such as transcription) to be done first. Over time the letters will be transcribed by volunteers and project staff, so our database will become progressively richer and more complete. We plan to have this database up and running by mid 2012.

The Letters

We estimate that there are about 5,000 surviving letters to and from Wallace, which are held in approximately one hundred institutions or private collections worldwide. Over half of them are in the collections of the Natural History Museum (c. 1200) and the British Library (c. 1600) combined. Smaller collections are present in other libraries in Britain and the United States of America, and there are a scattering of letters in other institutions and private collections throughout the Western world. If you know of any letters which you think we might not yet have found (e.g. letters in private collections) then we would be very grateful if you could contact us. Please CLICK HERE to send us a message.
 

Common variations of Wallace's name:
Wallace; Alfred Wallace; A. R. Wallace; Alfred R. Wallace; Russel Wallace; Alfred Russell Wallace [sic]

This site is maintained by George Beccaloni