Description

Book Synopsis
In 1858, aged thirty-five, weak with malaria, isolated in the remote Spice Islands, Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to Charles Darwin: he had, he said excitedly, worked out a theory of natural selection. Darwin was aghast - his work of decades was about to be scooped. Within a fortnight, his outline and Wallace''s paper were presented jointly in London. A year later, with Wallace still at the opposite side of the world, On the Origin of Species was published. Wallace had none of Darwin''s advantages or connections. Born in Usk, Gwent, in 1823, he left school at fourteen and in his mid-twenties spent four years in the Amazon collecting for museums and wealthy patrons, only to lose all his finds in a shipboard fire in mid-Atlantic. He vowed never to travel again. Yet two years later he was off to the East Indies, beginning an eight-year trek over thousands of miles; here he discovered countless unknown species and identified for the first time the point of divide between Asian and Australian

Alfred Russel Wallace

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    A Paperback by Peter Raby

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      Book details

      Publisher Vintage
      Published 3 July 2002
      ISBN-13 9780712665773
      978-0712665773
      ISBN-10 0712665773
      Also in:
      Biography: adventurers and explorers Science & Nature Evolution / Evolutionary biology History of science

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      In 1858, aged thirty-five, weak with malaria, isolated in the remote Spice Islands, Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to Charles Darwin: he had, he said excitedly, worked out a theory of natural selection. Darwin was aghast - his work of decades was about to be scooped. Within a fortnight, his outline and Wallace''s paper were presented jointly in London. A year later, with Wallace still at the opposite side of the world, On the Origin of Species was published. Wallace had none of Darwin''s advantages or connections. Born in Usk, Gwent, in 1823, he left school at fourteen and in his mid-twenties spent four years in the Amazon collecting for museums and wealthy patrons, only to lose all his finds in a shipboard fire in mid-Atlantic. He vowed never to travel again. Yet two years later he was off to the East Indies, beginning an eight-year trek over thousands of miles; here he discovered countless unknown species and identified for the first time the point of divide between Asian and Australian

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