xx, 422 pages : 25 cm

Virtually unknown today, Alfred Russel Wallace was the co-discoverer of natural selection with Charles Darwin and an eminent scientist who stood out among his Victorian peers as a man of formidable mind and equally outsized personality. Michael Shermer rescues Wallace from the shadow of Darwin in this biography. Here we see Wallace as perhaps the greatest naturalist of his age-spending years in remote jungles, collecting astounding quantities of specimens, writing thoughtfully and with bemused detachment at his reception in places where no white man had ever gone. Here, too, is his supple and forceful intelligence at work, grappling with such arcane problems as the bright colouration of caterpillars, or shaping his 1858 paper on natural selection that prompted Darwin to publish (with Wallace) the first paper outlining the theory of evolution. Wallace's self-trained intellect, while powerful, also embraced surprisingly naive ideas, such as his deep interest in the study of spiritual manifestations and seances. Shermer shows that the same iconoclastic outlook that led him to overturn scientific orthodoxy as he worked in relative isolation also led him to embrace irrational beliefs, and thus tarnish his reputation. The author turns his judgment and analysis to Wallace's life and his contradictory beliefs, aiming to restore a leading figure in the rise of modern science to his rightful place

Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-402)

Uncertain beginnings -- The evolution of a naturalist -- Breaching the walls of the species citadel -- The mystery of mysteries solved -- A gentlemanly arrangement -- Scientific heresy and ideological murder -- A scientist among the spiritualists -- Heretical thoughts -- Heretical culture -- Heretic personality -- The last great Victorian -- The life of Wallace and the nature of history

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