Alfred Russel Wallace's Field Notebook 1 is available as a transcript for the first time!

The Wallace Correspondence Project (WCP) is delighted to announce the release of a preliminary (still to be annotated and further edited) transcript of one of Alfred Russel Wallace’s most important notebooks – the first of his three surviving Field Notebooks which he kept in the Malay Archipelago from 1854 to 1861 (see the transcript HERE). This is the first time a transcript of this notebook has been made available. The original notebook was donated to the Linnean Society of London by Wallace’s children after his death, and is now in the Society’s library. You can see images of the pages HERE

The first half of Field Notebook 1, contains important lists of the animal species (largely insects and birds) which Wallace collected in Singapore and the State of Malacca (Melaka), Peninsular Malaysia, mostly during the first year (1854) of his 8 year expedition to the region. Also included is a list of ferns that he collected between c. late 1854 and early 1856 in Sarawak, Borneo.

The second half of the notebook contains details of the numerous consignments of specimens he shipped back to his agent Samuel Stevens in London, during his expedition. These shipments were the subject of paper by the late Donald Baker (see HERE) in 2001. Although (poor quality) images of the notebook pages were included in his paper, he did not attempt to transcribe the text, considering the task too difficult!

As announced in November 2023, the WCP is currently transcribing Wallace’s non-letter manuscripts, such as his notebooks, journals, lists etc. When we have finished, we are planning to a release a pdf catalogue of the manuscripts, which will include hyperlinks to the transcribed text (as pdf files), plus images of the documents if these are available online. The four travel journals which Wallace kept during his Malay Archipelago expedition, which he used to write his famous book The Malay Archipelago, will be published as a printed book and we are currently carefully correcting and annotating the transcripts we have of them.