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Dear Sir: Sixty-Nine Years of Alfred Russel Wallace Letters to the Editor

Title

Dear Sir: Sixty-Nine Years of Alfred Russel Wallace Letters to the Editor

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Description

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), colleague of Charles Darwin, co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection, “father” of the field of evolutionary biogeography, vocal socialist and spiritualist, land reform theorist, intense social critic, etc., etc., was one of the most captivating figures of his time. Wallace began his professional career through two great natural history collecting expeditions, one to the Amazon and the other to the Australasian Archipelago; so successful were these that many observers would place him as the front-ranking field naturalist of all time. After he returned to England in 1862, however, his professional emphasis shifted toward writing. His published works included more than twenty books and close to a thousand other items: technical scientific papers, essays, commentaries, book reviews, and, not least, some three hundred letters to the Editor. It is in the last that his temperament comes out most strongly, and it is our privilege in the present work to reproduce more than two hundred of these, extending to all of his many intellectual passions. The philosopher Charles Peirce once wrote of Wallace that he “never wrote a dull line in his life, and couldn’t if he tried”, and the reader here can expect to be entertained accordingly.

ISBN

978-0-9574530-7-4

Publication Date

2014

Publisher

Siri Scientific Press

Keywords

Amazon, Australasian Archipelago, Naturalist

Disciplines

Biodiversity | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Evolution

Comments

Charles H. Smith is Professor of Library Public Information Services at Western Kentucky University. His research interests include biogeography and evolutionary theory, systems theory, bibliography, and Alfred Russel Wallace. He has published four books, nearly a hundred journal articles and reviews, and currently maintains the website The Alfred Russel Wallace Page at http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/index1.htm

Dear Sir: Sixty-Nine Years of Alfred Russel Wallace Letters to the Editor

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