The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Wallace, A. R. 1.1909. Annotated envelope and Darwin letters to Sidney C. Cockerell. McGill-CA-OSLER0-P110[.2]. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University.

The letters once enclosed in this envelope were among the many documents and artefacts in the 1909 Darwin centenary exhibition at Christ's College, Cambridge. See Cockerell to Wallace, 23 March 1909, NHM-WP11.004. These letters were listed as: "167—171. AUTOGRAPH LETTERS FROM CHARLES DARWIN TO ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.
Lent by Sidney C. Cockerell, Esq.
These eight letters were all written to Wallace while he was in the Malay Archipelago. They have all been published with notes by Mr Francis Darwin in the Darwin Centenary Number of the Christ's College Magazine." on pp. 214-231.

Wallace writes here: "The MSS. of my Paper sent to Darwin and printed in the Journal of the Linnean Society, was not returned to me and I never thought more about it" wording similar to that he wrote on an envelope enclosing the letters in his papers and published in Alfred Russel Wallace letters and reminiscences (1916), pp. 128ff, but with a disarmingly casual end to the sentence. Contrary to much speculation by many writers since the 1980s, manuscripts of this kind were not returned from the printers; neither was Darwin's contribution to the same 1858 publication.

[1]

[In another hand:] (2)

8 Early Letters from Darwin (11 1/2 sheets)

Two are before I sent him my Paper—"The Tendency of Varieties &c."— The rest afterwards. All received by me in the Malay Archipelago.

The MSS. of my Paper sent to Darwin and printed in the Journal of the Linnean Society, was not returned to me and I never thought more about it. If, as seems probable, the proof with the MSS., was sent to Sir Charles Lyell, the MSS. may have been put away among his papers and forgotten.

A.R.W.

[postmark:]
Cambridge
8.30AM
JY 7
09
5
[In another hand:] Received the above

[1v]

S. C. Cockerell,

Fitzwilliam Museum,

Cambridge

[postmark:]
BROADSTONE
B
JY 6
09

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)