PETER RABY

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 Wallaces 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 Darwins 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 fauna, Wallaces Line. With vigour and sensitivity, Peter Raby reveals Wallace as a courageous and unconventional explorer. After his return, he plunged into a variety of controversies, staying vital and alert until his death at the age of 90, in 1913. Gentle, self-effacing, and remarkably free from the racism that blighted so many of his contemporaries, Wallace is one of the neglected giants of the history of science and ideas. This stirring biography - the first for many years - puts him at centre stage, where he belongs.

A fabulously rich, anecdotal and gripping account of those men and women who ventured out from Britain into the swamps and jungles of the tropics in search, knowingly or not, of the missing link. Through their stoical-sometimes crack-brained-voyages, the shape of the world, geographically and biologically, was elucidated. Never have more significant journeys been made. . . . Enthusiastic, informed and racy, this is one of the most invigorating accounts of the exploits of people from an age whose intrepidity is staggering. Peter Rabys book follows a disparate crew of botanists, scientists and collectors, who tried to order the earthly paradise which unfolded around them. Entrepreneurs they may have been - many were dependent on selling their specimens to finance their trips-but they were also scrupulous and sensitive observers. . . . Raby finds some shimmering, personalities. . . . His book is excellent. DAILY TELEGRAPH