THE HERETIC IN DARWIN'S COURT: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
Ross A. Slotten, . . Columbia Univ., $39.50 (602pp) ISBN 978-0-231-13010-3
In 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), a self-educated British naturalist collecting specimens in the Malay Archipelago, sent a brief manuscript to Charles Darwin outlining the concept of natural selection and explaining its important role in the creation of new species. Darwin, who had been working on this topic for 20 years but had not yet published anything, feared that Wallace's paper would take precedence over all of his own earlier work. In fact, Darwin's scientific allies arranged for a joint presentation of his ideas alongside Wallace's to the Linnean Society of London while Darwin rushed to complete
Reviewed on: 04/26/2004
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 640 pages - 978-0-231-50356-3
Paperback - 640 pages - 978-0-231-13011-0