Wallace Resources & Bibliography

There are a growing number of useful resources relating to Alfred Russel Wallace which are emerging. In particular, the centenary of his death in 2013 saw a significant growth. Here are some of my favourites:

• Wallace Letters Online: This is the excellent site, organised by the Wallace Correspondence Project at the Natural History Museum with George Beccaloni as editor, which is looking to digitise all of Wallace's extant correspondence. It is utilising crowdsourcing/citizen history to transcribe the 4,000+ letters already known. The text search facility makes it--even at this early stage--an invaluable resource not just for Alfred Russel Wallace scholars but anyone interested in the history of science, history of biology, nineteenth-century political, social and cultural history (both in the UK and USA) and more besides. Well worth a browse no matter what your subject area.
• Alfred Russel Wallace Page: An award-winning site created and edited by Wallace scholar Charles Smith dedicated to transcribing and digitising all of Wallace's publications no matter how small. It is an incredible resource again for anyone interested in nineteenth and early-twentieth century history. Currently it does not provide a lot of Wallace's books but this is slowly but surely changing.
• Wallace Online: Whereas the Alfred Russel Wallace Page above may contain all the known shorter pieces of Wallace's corpus, Wallace Online--which is edited by John van Wyhe--includes Wallace's books as well. The search facility is pretty clunky at present and there are numerous transcribing errors. Over time I am sure this will improve. But it is another invaluable resource.
• Wallace Notebooks Collection: This is a Linnean Society digitsation project which has sought to produce high-quality scans of all of Wallace's notebooks held there. These include some of his Malay Archipelago notebooks as well as his notebook from his American Lecture Tour in 1886 to 1887.
• Alfred Russel Wallace Facebook Page: A Facebook page maintained by George Beccaloni (of Wallace Letters Online fame) which includes a huge variety of Wallace-related material which is getting published around the world. Well worth friending.

Select Bibliography

There is a huge amount that has been written on Wallace over the years. This increased hugely during 2013 in response to the centenary of his death. As a result, I can’t really provide you with an exhaustive list of publication about the man. Here, however, are some of my personal highlights.

A Great Introduction

By far still the best introduction to Wallace for any reader at any level is Peter Raby’s Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life (2001). It is so beautifully readable and wonderfully researched I think it will be some time before it is surpassed.

As a first port of call, I always advise people read this work. It was also the first work specifically on Wallace than I read.

Want to Delve a Little Deeper?

If that has piqued your interest in Wallace then there are many other ways to build on that. Ross Slotten’s The Heretic in Darwin’s Court (2004) is another superb book. It is almost as enjoyable and easy to read as Raby’s and again stunningly researched.

Still want to know more?

If you still want to find out more about Wallace there are plenty of further avenues. For a more ‘biographical’ work, Martin Fichman’s An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace (2004) is another superb contribution by a scholar who has written widely on Wallace since the 1970s.

For a more comprehensive attempt to capture Wallace in all his varied glory you should head towards the edited collection of essays on him. Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace (2008) was edited by two leading Wallace scholars, Charles Smith and George Beccaloni, and includes a huge number of essays on incredibly varied topics.

If you’re looking for a more off beat approach to Wallace then I advise reader Michael Shermer’s admirable In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace (2002). This deploys a psychohistory approach to biography and is certainly intriguing.

How about some Printed Primary Sources?

The number of published primary sources on Wallace has increased hugely in recent years. The original one edited by James Marchant is Letters and Reminiscences (1916) and includes a great deal of interest.

However, beyond that Charles Smith published an excellent edited volume of some of Wallace’s shorter writings entitled Alfred Russel Wallace: An Anthology of His Shorter Writings (1991) is a nice collection although Smith's site is, of course, even better in this regard. It must be said that this is hard to get hold onto currently.

Another good source of some of Wallace's shorter writings is Andrew Berry's edited volume entitled Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology (2002). Berry--as with Smith--offers some very useful editorial additions which are worth reading.

Wallace’s correspondence is increasingly being transcribed (see above for Wallace Letters Online) by the Wallace Correspondence Project. However, beyond that little has been done to publish Wallace’s letters. A recent work by edited by John van Wyhe entitled Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters from the Malay Archipelago (2013) includes Wallace correspondence whilst on his famous Malay Archipelago journey.

Furthermore, Charles Smith has recently published a transcription of Wallace’s American travel diary called Alfred Russel Wallace's 1886-1887 Travel Diary: The North American Lecture Tour (2013). This is another great little book which opens up a previously underappreciated source.

Looking for a film adaptation?

There is not much in the way of film adaptations of Wallace and his life, but fortunately what there is available in superb.

In 1983 the BBC broadcast The Forgotten Voyage: Alfred Russel Wallace and his discovery of evolution by natural selection directed by Peter Crawford. It's well worth a watch and--thanks to Peter Crawford's permission--has been uploaded to YouTube by George Beccaloni.

It's about 75 minutes long but well worth setting time aside for!

Many, Many More out there

There are, as I say, many more books and resources on Wallace out there. Some are excellent, some less so. But I am sure it will be a joy for you to discover them as you head along the “Wallace Journey”.

I hope this is of some use.