Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace anthology edited by Andrew Berry, Verso, 拢19/$27, ISBN 1859846521 Reviewed by Roy Herbert
THE fates seem to have had it in for Alfred Russel Wallace. His most stupendous piece of bad luck was to have sent his ideas on evolution to Charles Darwin 鈥� to ask the opinion of the very man who had been working along the same lines for years. Alarmed that he might be pre-empted, Darwin published his long-considered theories immediately and made Wallace appear a poor second, panting along in his wake.
Moreover, the entire record of Wallace鈥檚 work as a naturalist in South America sank when his ship foundered in the Atlantic on its return. And while Darwin was rich and well connected, Wallace鈥檚 family was poor and his attempts at commercial success failed.
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Yet Wallace was a brilliant man: a scientific genius, a traveller and writer of enormous energy to the end of his days and not constrained by any boundaries of scientific disciplines. Consequently, this collection of his writing, each section introduced by relevant remarks on Wallace鈥檚 thinking at the time, is enthralling. His enjoyment of living and intellectual verve inform it all, from his thoughts on evolution and the science of biogeography, which he founded, to those on conservation, public education and that most Victorian of interests, spiritualism.
Wallace is always gripping, and shows elegance, stimulation and humour too.