Two early letters written by Wallace in 1854 and 1855 from Singapore and Sarawak, Borneo, respectively, were recently found by his grandson Alfred John Wallace in an old folder. John sent them to me at the Natural History Museum and kindly agreed to donate them to the NHM library, where they will be added to the huge collection of Wallace's correspondence which the Museum purchased from his grandsons in 2002 (for more information about this archive CLICK HERE).
These letters are interesting since they were not correspondence with friends or family, but instead journalistic field reports written by Wallace for publication in the Literary Gazette. Coincidentally, Wallace scholar Charles Smith has recently written an article about these very 'letters' - see http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=charles_smith
A full report about the discovery of these letters appears on the NHM website see: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2008/october/missing-wallace-letters-donated.html
To read the versions published in the Literary Gazette CLICK HERE and HERE
High resolution images of the original letters are in the Image Gallery to the left under Wallace manuscripts and artwork/Wallace letters
Large versions of Wallace's beautiful watercolour paintings which relate to the Sarawak letter are in the Image Gallery to the left under Wallace manuscripts and artwork/Artwork by Wallace
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