Editing Alfred Russel Wallace (section)

===Return to Britain, marriage and children===
[[File:Alfred Russel Wallace 1862 - Project Gutenberg eText 15997.png|thumb|upright|A photograph of Wallace taken in Singapore in 1862|alt=portrait photograph of Wallace]]

In 1862, Wallace returned to Britain, where he moved in with his sister Fanny Sims and her husband Thomas. While recovering from his travels, Wallace organised his collections and gave numerous lectures about his adventures and discoveries to scientific societies such as the [[Zoological Society of London]]. Later that year, he visited Darwin at [[Down House]], and became friendly with both Lyell and the philosopher [[Herbert Spencer]].{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=151–152}} During the 1860s, Wallace wrote papers and gave lectures defending natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin about topics including [[sexual selection]], [[warning coloration]]<!--yes, BE uses -or- here-->, and the possible effect of natural selection on hybridisation and the divergence of species.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=249–258}} In 1865, he began investigating spiritualism.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=235}}

After a year of courtship, Wallace became engaged in 1864 to a young woman whom, in his autobiography, he would only identify as Miss L. Miss L. was the daughter of Lewis Leslie who played chess with Wallace,{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|p=210}} but to Wallace's great dismay, she broke off the engagement.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=156}} In 1866, Wallace married Annie Mitten. Wallace had been introduced to Mitten through the botanist Richard Spruce, who had befriended Wallace in Brazil and who was a friend of Annie Mitten's father, [[William Mitten]], an expert on mosses. In 1872, Wallace built [[The Dell (Thurrock)|the Dell]], a house of concrete, on land he leased in [[Grays, Essex|Grays]] in Essex, where he lived until 1876. The Wallaces had three children: Herbert (1867–1874), Violet (1869–1945), and William (1871–1951).{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=239–240}}