| Description: |
Letters, 1835-1893, to and from A R Wallace and other members of his family and friends, with related papers. Letters 1835-1869 were filed together when listed in a ring binder with a contents list in an unknown hand (WGW's?) headed "Old letters to and from A. R. Wallace and other members of his family". Some undated letters and fragments which were at the back of the binder are not included in this contents list. The list is preceded by notes on A. R. Wallace's whereabouts at various dates. Correspondents include H W Bates, G Silk, Richard Spruce and members of Wallace's family. Letters are arranged by date except for a few later letters found among apparently unrelated papers, which have been added out of sequence at the end of the list. Place: Amazon Malaya Notes: The Contents list is of 58 letters, 1835-1869, on 3 folios each written on one side only in an unknown hand. Each letter in the Contents list is numbered and gives author, correspondent and month and year date. They are in chronological order with the exception of one outlier at the end of the list. Some undated letters and fragments which were at the back of the binder are not included in this contents list. Almost all letters have markings (underlining, brackets, or deletions) mostly in blue pencil, possibly by A. R. Wallace but possibly by his son or daughter, by James Marchant, or another. Because these are so common they have not been noted except where apparently related to annotations or where deletion obscures text.When acquired by the NHM these papers were in a maroon "Perry & Co" brand cardboard spring binder 28cm x 23.5 cm, with letters in individual (glassine?) envelopes.There were also loose notes made by NHM staff who have handled the material (personal information from Emma Bennett, assistant Librarian, General Library, Nov. 2002). Individual letters and pages have been removed from the album and placed in acid-free melinex folders or envelopes for protection. NB THE LARGEST FOUND IS NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR ALL UNFOLDED LETTERS. Some of the letters are in extremely poor condition, torn, with sections missing, dirty and foxed. The folios on which the contents are listed are brittle and foxed. Loose notes have been destroyed but as an aid to the staff who wrote them replaced with the same text written on acid free paper. The contents are also noted in the records of the pieces to which they refer. I recommend destruction of the album and glassine envelopes, as of virtually no historical value. The album is lined with an extremely acidic, brittle cardboard and the glassine envelopes are dirty and in most cases too small to hold the unfolded letters. At present they are in the large grey phase box labelled in pencil "WP1/3, together with the disbound letters. P J Lucas, 17/12/02 .Notes associated with the letters were written by Emma Bennett, assistant librarian NHM (identified by her) except in one case where a note was written by Sandra Knapp, botanist, NHM, author of "Footsteps in the Forest", on Wallace. Her hand was also identified by Emma. PJL 19/12/02. RECORD MODIFIED 13/10/03: A separate acid free envelope of papers was inserted between the album covers and is labelled "Listed as ' 6 sheets of notes relating to Darwin comments on island life'. Possibly by Darwin?". This is in fact seven folios of comments on A. R. Wallace's "Island Life" in Charles Darwin's hand; it has been relocated to Papers re publications: books by A. R. Wallace: 'Island Life': WP6/4 in new series WP6. |
