This feature will notice current events, publications, or new additions to this site concerned with Wallace and Wallace studies. Input is welcome. To link directly to this page, connect with: http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/news.htm

• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 5/1/08: S202, S217, S232, S321, S326, S327, S328, S342, S358a, S360a, S388, S391a, S411, and S412. (5/8/08)
  
  
• A new book on early Wallace-Darwin relations has just been published by Roy Davies under the title The Darwin Conspiracy. Davies writes: "The book which uses new research to show that Wallace's first letter from the Malay archipelago to Charles Darwin arrived in London on January 12, 1857 and not at the end of April 1857 as claimed by Darwin in his reply has now been published and is available in bookshops in the United Kingdom and on the web via Amazon.com." I'm sure that a wide readership will be interested in what Davies has to say. (5/8/08)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 1/30/08: S194, S195, S212, S223, S235, S245, S248b, S266b, S267, S268, S274, S295, S296, S298, S299, S300, S314, S315, S330, S366, S368, S392a, S402, S405, and S431. Most of these are short items such as book reviews of minor works, but included is the newly rediscovered S392a, an essay on Irish free rule, and the finally verified S266b, a lengthy letter to the Editor which lays out a plan to curb drunkenness. (5/1/08)
  
  
• A Conference is being held on 17 May 2008 in Usk, South Wales, to celebrate Alfred Russel Wallace's work and launch a book of poems by Anne Cluysenaar, Batu-Angas, Envisioning Nature with Alfred Russel Wallace (Seren Books). Speakers:  Dr. Peter Raby, Wallace's biographer; Anne Cluysenaar, reading a selection of poems; the photographer Fred Langford Edwards speaking about the work he is doing, thanks to a Wellcome Trust Award, photographing Wallace specimens (a selection to be exhibited at the conference) and his planned visits to the Amazon and Borneo; Prof. David Collard on Wallace's views on economics. Conference and coffee, £5. Conference, coffee and lunch, £11. Booking: Please contact The Treasurer, Usk Civic Society, 27 New Market Street, Usk, NP15 1AU. Further details: Tel. 672672. (4/30/08)
  
  
• Note the page at George Beccaloni's "Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund" site that lists events/projects that are being planned for this year's 150th anniversary celebration of Wallace's discovery of natural selection (February 1858), the Wallace-Darwin presentation at the Linnean Society (July 1858), and the publication of that presentation (August 1858). (4/30/08)
  
  
• I have just added eight items (S266b, S392a, S421c, S574a, S580a, S627a, S707ab, and S707ac) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Two of these--S266b and S392a--are quite interesting (the first, an 1877 plan to curb societal drunkenness, the second, an essay on Free Rule in Ireland in an edited collection) and I hope to put them up online in the near future. (4/19/08)
  
  
• I have recently added the following works to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Alves (2008), Anonymous (1984), Clarke (1881, 1882), Mason (2008), Mehmet (1992), Moore (2007), Pickering (1903), Richards (2005), Sagan (1970), Sarkar (2008), Thomas (1998), and Tymn (2008). (4/12/08)
  
  
• I have just put up a new feature on the site entitled "Miscellaneous Facts (and Other Items)," accessible through the main menu. It consists of just what it says it is--miscellaneous factual items I have come across over the years that don't seem to fit in well anywhere else. It may not represent a very exciting browse in itself, but at least its contents will add to the totality of searchable material on the site. (2/15/08)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 12/14/07: S168a and S272. S272 is the well known essay "The Colours of Animals and Plants," originally published in 1877. (1/30/08)
  
  
• George Beccaloni at the Natural History Museum in London has just opened a great new website on Wallace, at:  http://wallacefund.info/ . George's site provides a home base for The Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund, and contains information not only on that organization, but on various matters related to Wallace, such as places named for him and Wallace projects that are underway. (1/17/08)
  
  
• I have just added another ten items (S368ab, S519a, S595c, S595d, S623aa, S680a, S690aa, S690ab, S707aa, and S744a) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, and Anonymous (1877, 1882 & 1883), Bermingham & Dick (2001), Carmo & Martins (2006), Daniels (2001), Fichman & Keelan (2007), Janes (1890), Manna (2006), Massarani (1999), Moreira (2007), Stearn (1960), and Webb (1898) to the lists in the "Writings on Wallace" section. (1/11/08)
  
  
• George Beccaloni at the Natural History Museum has alerted me to the fact that BBC Radio 4 had a programme on Wallace on New Year's Day on their "Great Lives" series. (1/2/08)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 11/29/07: S113a, S183, S185, S187, S189, S190, S192, S384a, S439, S447a, S459a, S479, S488, S519, S555, S557a, S591a, S595b, and S702a. (12/14/07)
  
  
• I have added three portrait images of Wallace to the Welcome screen, and seven images to the "Wallace Books: Maps and Figures" feature. (12/1/07)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 8/31/07: S13a, S14a, S30, S47, S59, S61, S70, S71, S72, S85, S86, S105, S106, S109, S112, S117, S126a, S126b, S135, S137, S138, S141a, S142aa, S143b, S160, S166, S167, S177, S182, S325b, and S365a. (11/29/07)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified items S113a, S168a, S325b, S365a, S368b, S384a, S447a, S459a, S557a, S591a, S595b, and S702a--all thanks to an extended search through Google Books--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. All are rather short, but as a group they provide a good sampling of the reaches of Wallace's sphere of interest. (11/24/07)
  
  
• A very interesting article at www.broadway.com is by Manoel Felciano, who "is currently co-starring in Atlantic Theatre Company's [Off-Broadway] production of Trumpery, a new play by Peter Parnell that examines the roots of Darwin's theories. Felciano is cast as Alfred Russel Wallace, a British evolutionary thinker who arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin but disagreed on the possible spiritual underpinnings of Natural Selection." (11/24/07)
  
  
• According to a story at www.wellcome.ac.uk, in September artist Fred Langford Edwards won a Small Arts Award to "work with Dr. George Beccaloni of the Natural History museum to research and explore the contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace to the theories of natural selection and evolution. The artist will create artworks, installations, and exhibitions supported by an illustrated catalogue. The works will explore the life, ideas, and surviving collections of Wallace, and the physical hardships he endured during his travels." (11/17/07)
  
  
• Professor I. C. Moreira has been kind enough to send me a photo of the plaque honoring Wallace and Bates that was mounted in the Amazonian city of Manaus in 2004. (10/31/07)
  
  
• I have just added thirty-six new paragraphs to the "Wallace-Related Research Threads" feature. (9/23/07)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 5/9/07: S286, S358, S381, S397, S409, S426, S467, S483, S495, S502a, S506, S515, S518a, S520a, S530, S533, S537, S540, S552, S554a, S562a, S566, S572, S576, S580, S584, S586, S591, S593, S599, S604, S612, S614, S620, S639, S640, S641, S644, S645, S657, S664, S666, S670, S672, S673, S677, S679, and S687. (8/31/07)
  
  
• A total of 136 new items have now been added to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature since the list was originally published in 1991 as part of my OUP book. The "S" numbers of these items are: 1a, 13a, 14a, 69a, 76a, 102a, 102b, 104a, 108a, 113a, 123a, 126a, 126b, 130a, 130b, 131a, 141a, 142aa, 142a, 142b, 143a, 143b, 154a, 158a, 159a, 167a, 168a, 179aa, 179a, 182a, 184a, 200a, 208a, 246a, 248a, 248b, 266a, 266b, 294a, 302a, 314a, 315a, 321a, 322a, 325a, 325b, 356a, 357a, 358a, 360a, 365a, 368a, 368ab, 368b, 371a, 384a, 391a, 392a, 397a, 397b, 405a, 408a, 421a, 421b, 421c, 422a, 425a, 427a, 439a, 446a, 447a, 459a, 486a, 502a, 504a, 507a, 513a, 518a, 519a, 520a, 527a, 531a, 547a, 554a, 555a, 557a, 562a, 574a, 576a, 576b, 580a, 591a, 592a, 595a, 595b, 595c, 595d, 597a, 598a, 603a, 618a, 619b, 620a, 623a, 623aa, 624a, 627a, 628a, 628aa, 628b, 643a, 646a, 650a, 654a, 668a, 674a, 676a, 680a, 688a, 690a, 690ab, 692a, 692b, 700a, 702a, 703a, 707a, 707aa, 707ab, 707ac, 707b, 712a, 734a, 744a, and 748a. (4/19/08)
  
  
• I have just added another fifty or so items to the bibliographies, including seven (S141a, S142b, S408a, S439a, S446a, S502a, and S513a) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature and over forty, new and old, to the lists in the "Writings on Wallace" section. (8/14/07)
  
  
• I have been spending part of my summer looking page by page through the early years of the spiritualist journal Light (London), which turns out to have had a yearly index which only incompletely reflects its contents. I have so far come across eleven "new" Wallace contributions that merit inclusion in my bibliography of his writings; six of these are already there (and mentioned just below), but the remaining five and any others I may find in the ten volumes or so I have left to go will be added in a few weeks or so. Some of these are rather minor, but others are actually quite interesting. P.S.: The early volumes of Light (it began in 1881) contain many letters to the Editor and other contributions by an interesting array of folks--apart from noted spiritualists of the time such as Stainton Moses (who was editor for many years), Emma Hardinge Britten, Hudson Tuttle, C. C. Massey and others, psychical researchers like William F. Barrett, Carl Du Prel, F. W. H. Myers, W. T. Stead and Frank Podmore, and theosophists such as Henry Steele Olcott, Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant, other interesting characters put their two cents' worth in from time to time: for example, Oliver Lodge, Arthur Conan Doyle, and William Butler Yeats. (7/22/07)
  
  
• I have just added newly or recently identified items S142aa, 167a, 356a, 357a, S421a, S421b, S422a, S425a, S504a, S531a, S592a, S707b, and S712a--mostly relatively minor comments and published letters--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. S754, an interview (actually, a conversation), has been added to the interviews list. I found the first thirteen, while Christine Garwood alerted me to the existence of the last. S712a is the previously unpublished write-up (originally sent to photography pioneer Fox Talbot in 1843) I brought attention to in a short paper that appeared in the Nature issue of 7 September 2006. (7/1/07)
  
  
• I have just added a considerable mass of materials to the lists in the "Writings on Wallace" section of the site: citations to around thirty more book reviews of Wallace works, and over forty-five citations each to both the secondary literature list covering his time, and the one devoted to the years after his death (including up to the present time). Much of this return has come from an examination of some new (to me, anyway) retrospective databases. Within a couple of weeks I will have also added notice of a dozen or more newly rediscovered Wallace writings. I am additionally working on about forty new full-text documents, but these take time to process and will not be ready for public viewing before the early fall. (6/25/07)
  
  
• Is Wallace truly becoming better known to the overall population? One indirect way of measuring this is to look at how misspellings of his name have decreased over recent years. Using the search engine AlltheWeb, I first checked the total number of sites containing his name as spelled with one 'l' and with two 'l's (going all the way back to their starting point, 1/1/80), and found 129000 sites containing the former, and 27600 sites containing the latter, a proportion of the latter to the former of about .214--a bit more than one to five (Google produces totals of 286000 and 56000, respectively, a proportion of about .196). I then kept changing the starting date upward toward the present, the effect being to focus in on those sites that had been changed or begun only more and more recently. The trend was fairly obvious. By the point I set the search for those sites new or altered since 1/1/07, the numbers were 97900 and 8890, respectively, a proportion of about .091. Those sites that were new or altered since 6/1/07 produced figures of 72800 and 1400, respectively, a proportion of about .019--a more than tenfold improvement overall. Apparently, people are getting more and more used to the name--both as to its unusual spelling, and, one surmises, in general. (6/24/07)
  
  
• I don't recall seeing this noted before (though 'am not confident it hasn't), but Wallace's "Sarawak law" paper (S20) is specially mentioned at the very end of William J. Hamilton's presidential anniversary address to the Geological Society of London, delivered on 15 February 1856. Nearly the final words of this almost one hundred page speech are: "... As in some measure connected with the same subject, I must direct your attention to a paper published by Mr. Alfred Wallace on the law which has regulated the introduction of new species. Mr. Wallace is a naturalist of no ordinary calibre. His travels in South America and elsewhere are a sufficient guarantee of his high merits; he now writes from Sarawak, Borneo. From a careful examination of the actual distribution of existing forms of animal life, and the gradual but complete renewal of the forms of life in successive geological epochs, he has deduced the following law:--Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species. The question is one of great importance, and deserving the careful investigation of every geologist; but I think it may be doubted whether this assumed law can be maintained as a universal generalization." Some attention has been given in the past to Charles Lyell's and Edward Blyth's notice of the paper (and its subsequent reading by Charles Darwin), but here is recognition that found its way into print (in the Society's Quarterly Journal series). Was this on Hamilton's own initiative, or did Lyell (who certainly must have known him fairly well) alert him as he did Darwin? (6/20/07)
  
  
• A correspondent has informed me that a campaign has been mounted to defeat a commercial development plan for the land around Bryncoch farm, near Neath, Wales, at which house Wallace boarded for over a year in 1841-1842 while working for his older brother William as a surveyor. A counter-plan has been developed by locals to turn the area into a nature reserve. See http://www.bryncochfarm.org.uk for more information. (6/15/07)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 3/23/07: S263, S264, S265, S276, S291, S332, S337, S344, S345, S346, S347, S352, S361, S384, S404, S416, S421, S461, S465, S470, S475, S501, S527a, S532, S568, S578, S642, S650, S686, and S697. (5/9/07)
  
  
• Some new Wallace writings have turned up in online full-text, this time through the Million Book Project at Carnegie Mellon University. First-time titles include Travels on the Amazon and The World of Life. (4/25/07)
  
  
• I am happy to report that I am just now signing a contract with Oxford University Press to co-edit (with George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, London) a collection of contributed writings tentatively titled Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel. We hope to have the work out and on the shelves by the end of 2008. (4/3/07)
  
  
• I have installed a "'Have a Question?" button over the Wallace image on the homepage. I am always happy to receive a communication--whether it just be a "hello," a general inquiry, or a research question! (4/3/07)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 1/27/07: S45, S48, S49, S50, S58, S63, S66, S68, S69, S73, S74, S75, S76, S80, S84, S90, S91, S92, S94, S95, S97, S96-S98, S99, S100, S111, S123a, S178, S193, S196, S200, S215, S227, S229, S249, and S307. (3/23/07)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 9/20/06: S156, S182a, S362, S371a, and S393. (1/27/07)
  
  
• The Natural History Museum in London has just opened an extensive online collection of Wallace materials drawn primarily from their purchase of some 5000 items of Wallaceiana from the Wallace family a few years back. Included are facsimiles and transcriptions of correspondence and publication drafts, drawings and architectural plans, images of specimens, etc. etc. This browsable service focussing on a couple of hundred items from the overall collection provides a generous and entertaining "smattering" of Wallace fare. Go to:  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/collections-at-the-museum/wallace-collection/index.jsp  (12/17/06)
  
  
• I have just added a new feature to the site called "Wallace-Related Research Threads." This represents an attempt to sample those lines of research that have emanated from his example, whether in the sciences, parapsychology, social criticism, or elsewhere. The feature consists of well over two hundred excerpts from the scholarly literature that make referrals to, or describe elaborations on, particular elements of his work. The feature may be browsed, or searched using the site's search engine or your browser's "Edit > Find" function. (11/1/06)
  
  
• A correspondent has informed me of two upcoming lectures on Wallace; both are free and to be given in London. On the 13th of November the first NHM Wallace Lecture will be given by Dr. James Moore of the Open University at the Museum at 4:30. Two days later, on the 15th, writer Marek Kohn will present "'Then at once I seemed to see the whole effect of this...' Imagining the power of natural selection" as the 10th Annual Robert Grant Lecture at 4:30 in the Darwin Lecture Theatre at University College, London. (10/31/06)
  
  
• I have just today launched my new Wallace-related site: The Once and Future Wallace, or, Evolutionary Theorizing in the Manner of Alfred Russel Wallace. This not only features materials on my revisionist appreciation of Wallace's thought, but also a consideration of how the notion of "final causes" might be applied to various philosophical and research topics in today's world. Included is discussion of a model of spatial extension I have been working on for over twenty years, off and on; the philosophical discussion may get a bit murky in a few places, but I am hoping that the simulation and empirical work in particular will get some of the more curious of readers out there scratching their heads... (10/26/06)
  
  
• I hope everyone feels my re-organization of the welcome page is an improvement--at the least, it makes the links to the features more compact, and increases the onscreen space for text by some twenty per cent. I would very much appreciate feedback on any problems that this change might have produced--I've checked the main connections, but I suppose there could be other problems. (10/17/06)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 2/11/06: S240, S241, S386, S387, S407, S414, S423, S446, S447, S454, S457, and S481. (9/20/06)
  
  
• This week's (September 7) issue of the British journal Nature contains an article describing my discovery of a previously unpublished Wallace paper (not just letter) dating from 1843, and dealing with a technical subject (this is some seven years earlier than his heretofore first known treatment of a scientific subject). The subject itself is somewhat surprising, but even more interesting is what may have occurred as a result of his efforts! (9/6/06)
  
  
• Correspondent George Beccaloni at the Natural History Museum, London, has relayed me a couple of interesting items. First, the Natural History Museum has put online an image of a little-known painting of Wallace by J. W. Beaufort. Beaufort worked from photographs of Wallace, completing the painting in 1923. Second, a news item from a location near Stockton, California, has emerged concerning Wallace's older brother John, who emigrated to California while Wallace was in the Amazon. It turns out that there is a small town named Wallace in this area, and that it was named after Wallace's bother. (7/28/06)
  
  
• Thanks to the Google Book Search program, four Wallace monographs are now available electronically for the first time: Tropical Nature, and Other Essays (S719), Island Life (S721), The Wonderful Century (S726), and My Life (S729). A warning, however: not all of these reproductions are of the highest quality, and though the contents of all four can be searched electronically, one should not assume that every occurrence of each term searched for will actually be recovered. Links to the files are provided in the "Texts of Wallace Writings" and "Wallace Bibliography" sections of this site. (7/9/06)
  
  
• Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett were on Charlie Rose last night discussing Buffett's enormous philanthropic contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and during the talk the subject of not leaving all of one's wealth to one's children or future stockholders came up several times. It would seem that once again, opinion on a tricky subject has started to shift toward Wallace's approach to the matter. Wallace, of course, was against the leaving of gained wealth to one's future descendants, as is obvious from the essay "Limitation of State Functions in the Administration of Justice" (1873) and several other of his writings. (6/27/06)
  
  
• I have at last gotten around to producing Chapter Seven of my online monographic analysis Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist--the work is now completely done--sort of. This final addition is the work's Epilogue: actually a much shorter one than I had originally envisioned. Have a look, and you will see that the final couple of paragraphs contain an important notice affecting the future of the site. (6/10/06)
  
  
• Correspondent George Beccaloni writes: "On Saturday May 20th 2006, Wallace's grandson, Richard, unveiled a monument to his illustrious grandfather near Usk, Wales, outside the church where Wallace was baptised and close to the cottage where he was born. The 1.5 x 1.0 x 1.0 m monument is made from 350 million year old limestone with fossils on its surface. The rock was donated by Hanson Aggregates from one of their quarries near Bridgend, southern Wales, and the two black granite plaques were produced by the Welsh company Mossfords. The monument was paid for by the A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund, which biologists George and Janet Beccaloni from the Natural History Museum, London, originally set up in 1999 in order to restore and preserve Wallace's neglected grave in Broadstone, Dorset. John Barrow of the Usk Civic Society and the poet Anne Cluysenaar were instrumental in organising the project. About 100 people attended the unveiling ceremony, including local civic dignitaries and representatives of the three local groups who were involved with the project i.e. the Usk Civic Society, the Usk Conservation & Environmental Group, and the Friends of Usk Rural Life Museum. Before the unveiling Dr George Beccaloni gave a talk entitled 'Alfred Russel Wallace: his life and work, and his childhood in Llanbadoc, Usk.'" Three photos (copyright Janet Beccaloni) connected with the event: (1) Llanbadoc church where Wallace was baptised (the monument is just outside the churchyard); (2) a close-up of the main plaque (there are two); (3) the unveiled monument, with persons left to right: Wallace's grandson, Richard; Lord Raglan; John Barrow and Anne Cluysenaar (the principle organisers of the project); and Audrey Wallace (Richard's wife). More on the story. (5/31/06)
  
  
• I am pleased to announce the publication of another analysis of Wallace's life and work, this one by Federico Focher of the Istituto di Genetica Molecolare in Pavia, Italy. The new book is entitled L' Uomo che Gettò nel Panico Darwin: La Vita e le Scoperte di Alfred Russel Wallace, and was published by the well known firm Bollati Boringhieri. (5/25/06)
  
  
• Over the weekend a story on Wallace appeared in newspapers around the world. It seems that his grandson Richard recently discovered a collection of 219 of Wallace's "favorite" insect specimens tucked away in storage in his attic. Richard Wallace donated the lot to the British Museum (Natural History), where entomologist George Beccaloni made time to restore the items, most of which had been badly damaged by... insects. According to the news release made by The Museum, it "is working on an online digital resource of 200 Wallace items, due to launch in July 2006." (2/14/06)
  
  
• An English artist named Duncan Cameron has of late been creating displays related to Wallace's natural history explorations: "Much of my work involves a sort of scientific exploration, through collection of dead insects, using magnets to retrieve metal things from rivers and immersing items in collected seawater jam-jars, although it could be said that I pursue these activities not to further scientific knowledge but to tell stories." (1/7/06)
  
  
• Over the past week I have added the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' part of the "Writings on Wallace" section of this site: Bulmer (2005), Campbell (2003), Caro (2005), Davies (2000), Dunn (2004), Fonfría (2003), Glaubrecht (2002), Greene & McDiarmid (2005), Hall & Harvey (2002), Hull (2005), Kathirithamby (2005), Kohn (2004), Lamont (2004), Lieberman (2005), Ollerton (2005), Mallet (2004), Paterson (2005), Paul (2003), Racheli & Racheli (2004), Radick (2003), Richards (2003), Sachtleben (1959), Speed & Ruxton (2005), Sweet & Pianka (2003), Travis (2004), and Tuen & Das (2005). (12/29/05)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified items S179aa, S182a, S200a, S248a, S248b, S314a, S397a, S397b, S598aa, S619b, and S643a--various relatively minor comments and published letters--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Six of these items were discovered by myself, four by John van Wyhe, and one by James Moore. (12/26/05)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" section of this site since 11/17/05: S6, S9, S31, S32, S33, S35, S36, S42, S44, S279, and S301 (2/11/06)
  
  
• I have just added the full-text of Wallace's The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural (S118)--the original 1866 pamphlet version, not the 1875 version incorporated into the book On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism--to the "Wallace Writings" section of the site. This was Wallace's first writing on spiritualism, composed just before he became a full convert to the belief in late 1866 or early 1867. (11/11/05)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" section of this site since 6/4/05: S3, S4, S15, S17, S57, S107, S108, S118, S134, S171, S180, S257 (part I), S261, S270, S310, S312, S463, S464, S492, S504, and S526. (11/17/05)
  
  
• It has come to my attention that the original (1916) two volume edition of James Marchant's Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences has been made available electronically through Project Gutenberg. This is good news, as apart from Wallace's autobiography My Life, which has not yet been converted, this is the best early source of biographical information on Wallace. (9/3/05)
  
  
• I remind readers a final time that News World is organizing an event that will honor Wallace's work in Sarawak, circa 1855. It is called the International Media Environment Summit, and will be held on November 30th through December 2nd in Kuching. The list of speakers who will be attending is impressive, including a good number of well known figures in science, conservation, and the media. For further information contact Bess Manley at:  bessmanley@newsworldnature.com . (9/3/05)
  
  
• Correspondent Alexander Davey reports that the house Wallace stayed in at Ternate apparently still exists, and that he is interested in receiving advice on possible ways to proceed in the direction of getting it restored/renovated into a Wallace museum facility. Both funding and expertise in historic restoration are at issue. Davey is a development officer who is working in the area; he can be contacted at:  alexandertristandavey@hotmail.com . (6/6/05)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" section of this site since 2/4/05: S259, S266, and S518. (6/4/05)
  
  
• Over the past several months I have added the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' part of the "Writings on Wallace" section of this site: Böhle et al. (1996), Bueno H. & Llorente B. (2005), Glaubrecht (2002), Glaubrecht & Kotrba (2004), Michaux (2000), Slotten (2004), C. Smith (2004, 2004, 2004, 2005), Tamura et al. (2004), and Voss & Sarkar (2003). (6/3/05)
  
  
• I was recently contacted by a representative of News World to tell me that they are organizing an event that will honor Wallace's work in Sarawak, circa 1855. It is called the International Media Environment Summit, and will be held on November 30th through December 2nd in Kuching. The list of speakers who will be attending is already impressive, including a good number of well known figures in science, conservation, and the media. For further information contact Bess Manley at:  bessmanley@newsworldnature.com . (3/9/05)
  
  
• I have just put up a new feature on the site called 'Some Maps and Figures from the Books of Alfred Russel Wallace' ('Wallace Books: Maps & Figures' in the menu) that features a sample of maps, plates and figures from those of Wallace's books that I have not put up here at this site. This will be added to in the future as time permits. (2/12/05)
  
  
• Just recently The Alfred Russel Wallace Page achieved another honor, squeezing into the latest top 50 (at #50) in ISP's "Top 100 Web Pages," for the subcategory ".edu Sites." For comparison purposes, the three .edu sites directly ahead of ARWP on the list are University of Michigan Press, Davidson College, and Center for American Women and Politics; those directly below are Grinnell College, Vernor Vinge on the Singularity, and Southern Utah University. (2/4/05)
  
  
• Last month I gave a keynote address at the biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society entitled "Alfred Russel Wallace, Past and Future." My sincere thanks to the IBS for this opportunity; they were initiating a new lifetime service award in Wallace's name (the first one went to veteran zoogeographer John Briggs), and this seemed an appropriate place for such a presentation. (2/4/05)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" section of this site since 11/07/04: S62, S127, S221, S237, S248, S305, S350, S441, S455, S466, S480, and S551. I have also set up links to the JSTOR files for S269 and S393. (2/4/05)
  
  
• New commentaries on Wallace writings were recently added to S165 (Michael Cremo) and S306 (William Coleman). (1/27/05)
  
  
• The fifth chapter of my online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. This completes the main portion of the book, though I plan to add an Introduction and an epilogue chapter when I get a chance. The six chapters now present give a fairly complete rendering of my understanding of the evolution of Wallace's views (though the reader should understand that it is the broad picture I am interested in here rather than details of his views on such subjects as sexual selection or biogeographic theory). (1/14/04)
  
  
• A correspondent has notified me that Wallace's book Darwinism is now available online through Project Gutenberg, at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/5/5/14558/14558-h/14558-h.htm . (1/11/05)
  
  
• I have just received notice that a special International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy-sponsored symposium entitled "The Wallace-Darwin Symposium: A Continuing Conversation in the History of Ideas" will be held as part of the Darwin Festival, an annual event which always features important speakers. The event will take place in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, on February 12th, 2005. Advertising for the event repeatedly refers to Wallace as being Welsh; in the past I have taken the stance that this is an inaccurate representation, but the reader might decide for hi/rself after reviewing my reasons as given in the last entry in the "FAQ" section of this site. All geopolitics aside, the symposium should be of considerable interest, as it will focus on issues of ethics, spirituality, esthetics, peace, and culture as related to the evolutionary process, and whether Wallace's ideas might potentially be of more value in these directions than Darwin's. (1/1/05)
  
  
• According to a British Council news release, a plaque honoring Wallace and his colleague Henry Walter Bates was unveiled on 27 September 2004 in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, at the Third International Colloquium on the History of Darwinism in Europe and the Americas, which was held in that city. By Wallace's time the city had already been made capital of the province, and at this point it is a sprawling metropolis of going on two million inhabitants. (12/15/04).
  
  
• I have received notice that "An International Conference on Wallace in Sarawak--150 Years Later" will be held 13-15 July 2005 in Kuching, Sarawak, celebrating the sesquicentennial of Wallace's period of stay there. There is a call for oral and poster papers out (the proceedings will be published), and a number of field trips and tours are planned. The conference will explore both historical and current contexts (e.g., conservation). For further information contact Dr. Andrew Alek Tuen, Director of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, at: aatuen@ibec.unimas.my , or by phone at 6082-671000 ext. 259. (11/22/04)
  
  
• I have received belated word of the death earlier this year of H. Lewis McKinney, perhaps the single most responsible individual for reviving interest in Wallace in the 1960s and early 1970s. McKinney was a history professor at Kansas from 1968 to 1988, when he retired. His important analysis Alfred Russel Wallace and Natural Selection was nominated for a National Book Award in 1972. He died in Lawrence, Kansas. (11/22/04)
  
  
• I have added a preprint of my essay "Wallace's Unfinished Business" to the "Smith on Wallace" section of the site. This work will appear in the journal Complexity. It describes a way of looking at Wallace's model of natural selection in terms of cybernetics (per a suggestion once made by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson), and how this starting point might lead to a new understanding of the concept of "adaptation." (11/04/04)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" section of this site since 5/26/04: S161, S173, S348, S437, S451, S523, S524, S535, S646, S684, S692a, S692b, and S708. (11/07/04)
  
  
• I have just added another item to the "Smith on Wallace" part of this site: an essay entitled "Wallace's 'Second Moment': Intelligent Conviction and the Course of Human Evolution." This was originally intended for print publication, but reviewers didn't care for the non-sociological approach (apparently historians are more interested these days in context than they are in facts...). (9/26/04)
  
  
• A correspondent has sent me notice of a play by Alex ben Mayor entitled "On Intoxicated Ears" that will run 29 September to 10 October (at the venue fortyfivedownstairs) as part of the Fringe Festival in Melbourne, Australia. It deals with the question of why it is that music makes us feel, and "explores the scientific answers and distils them into the meeting between two deceased geniuses, the deaf Ludwig Van Beethoven and the somewhat overlooked naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace. In a rapidly overcrowding underworld, the artist and scientist are forced to share a space. Here they begin to discover the differences and similarities in their respective views of life, death, purpose and art." (9/21/04)
  
  
• The third chapter of my in-preparation online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. (9/19/04)
  
  
• Because of some problem caused by an operations change inflicted by the computing services people here on campus, there are now some formatting and other problems (especially diacritical marks) on this site (and my other ones as well). Please be patient as I try to work these out. (8/7/04)
  
  
• According to the In the Tracks of Hercules website, a writer named Anne Cluysenaar is preparing a collection of poems "exploring the relationship of scientific to spiritual insight through the life and work of . . . Alfred Russel Wallace." (8/1/04)
  
  
• Another new biography of Wallace has been published, this by author Ross Slotten and Columbia University Press. The work is over six hundred pages long and features a lot of information on Wallace's post-Amazon and Malay Archipelago adventures. The title: The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace. This means that a full-sized biography of Wallace has now appeared in each year from 2000 to the present. (8/1/04)
  
  
• I have just switched the points of entry for "Wallace Chronology" and "Smith on Wallace" on the homepage to reflect the fact that the second now represents a much larger feature. (7/25/04)
  
  
• I have just added the full-text of "Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species" (S146: 1869) to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site. This long essay review of two books by Charles Lyell includes Wallace's first major public statement regarding his belief that natural selection cannot be held to account for all aspects of human evolution. As far as I am aware, this work, one of his most cited, has never been reprinted before in its entirety, either in paper (in Wallace's time or more recently) or electronically. (6/19/04)
  
  
• I have finished creating active links between those Wallace writings I have up in full-text and all the individual subject referrals in the 'General Subject Index' part of the "Wallace Bibliography" section of the site. This was a bit of a bother, but at least now it is easier to connect multiple writings on such subjects to their respective texts. (5/31/04)
  
  
• The sixth chapter of my in-preparation online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. (5/30/04)
  
  
• Over the past several months I have added the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' part of the "Writings on Wallace" section of this site: Brown & Guttman (2002), Coleman (2001), Cremo (2003), Davis (1998), Endersby (2003), Fichman (2004), Fox (2001), Hampson (2000), Kutschera (2003), Levine (2002), Moreira (2002), Pels (2003), Sabadell (1998), Sherratt (2002), Simons (1983), C. Smith (2004 & 2004), and Stack (2003). (5/26/04)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 2/27/04: S89, S102, S114, S255, S275, S282, S398, S522, S561, S569, S571, S573, and S699. (5/26/04)
  
  
• The March 2004 issue of the International Biogeography Society Newsletter brings some news. During the January meeting of the IBS Board it was moved "that IBS establish the Alfred Russel Wallace Award for lifetime contributions to biogeography, with the aim of giving one award every other year and the goal of giving two awards at the next conference to get on track, with one individual to give a presentation at the upcoming conference, and the other to give a presentation at the next conference (in 2007)... All voted in favor." (4/28/04)
  
  
• The fourth chapter of my in-preparation online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. (4/16/04)
  
  
• The second chapter of my in-preparation online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. (3/15/04)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 12/13/03: S64, S288, S289, S356, S410, S529, S595, S595a, S597a, S635, S685, Chapter 15 of S724, and Chapter 17 of S726. (2/27/04)
  
  
• I am pleased to announce that my edited three-volume collection entitled Alfred Russel Wallace: Writings on Evolution 1843-1912 is now available in England from Thoemmes Continuum (it will be distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press). Volume 1 of the set consists of a selection of over sixty of Wallace's periodical writings on the subject, while Volume 2 represents a facsimile reprint of Wallace's book Darwinism, (S724) and Volume 3, his book Natural Selection and Tropical Nature (S725). Over 1500 pages of Wallace! The Introduction to Volume 1 of the set is available here. (2/4/04)
  
  
• Okay, so just how well know is Wallace these days? Well, if the searches I just did on the two services AlltheWeb and Google are any indication, pretty well--at least as compared with other Victorian period naturalist noteworthies. His name receives far fewer hits than Darwin, of course, and he still trails Alexander von Humboldt and Herbert Spencer by over two to one, but he is closing in on Thomas Huxley and Gregor Mendel, and actually has gone ahead of Francis Galton, Asa Gray, Charles Lyell, Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, and Louis Agassiz--if we're thinking of this in "competition" terms, that is... I have also determined that there now are, relatively speaking, fewer spelling errors on his name ('Russell' instead of 'Russel') than there used to be--another sign he is getting better known. (1/11/04)
  
  
• An important new addition to the secondary literature on Wallace has just been published by the University of Chicago Press: Martin Fichman's An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace. Fichman, the author of an earlier biography of Wallace and several articles on him as well, concentrates more on Wallace's immersion in spiritualism and social issues than have other writers. The main chapters of the book are titled: The Making of a Victorian Naturalist; Wallace's Evolutionary Philosophy; The Making of a Victorian Spiritualist; Land Nationalization to Socialism; Toward a Synthesis: Wallace's Theistic Evolutionary Theology. See my review at Amazon.com. (1/3/04)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 10/29/03: S16, S22, S34, S55, S56, S250, and S321a. (12/13/03)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified items S325a, S427a, S547a, S576a, S576b, S650a, S690a, S700a, and S703a--nine "public letters" that Wallace signed (along with other dignitaries) that were printed in The Times of London--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Technically, none of these was probably written by Wallace himself, but they are interesting to the degree that they represent causes that Wallace supported strongly enough to put his name to publicly. (12/6/03)
  
  
• A correspondent informs me that the 45-minute film "Alfred Wallace: One in a Generation" had a successful premier on November 13 in Castle Hall, Hertford, U.K. About 200 people attended the showing, which attracted positive press notices. A video is available from outlets in the area, and from www.barebonefilms.com. A DVD will be offered in a few months. (12/2/03)
  
  
• Over the past several months I have added the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' section of the "Writings on Wallace" part of this site: Balick (1980), Bueno H. & Llorente B. (2000), Bueno H. & Llorente B. (2003a), Bueno H. & Llorente B. (2003b), Clode & O'Brien (2001), Dawkins (2002), Erdelen (2001), Gardiner (2002), Jones (2002), Knapp et al. (2002), Metcalfe et al. (2001), O'Connor & Veth (2000), Pain (2003), Peck (2003), C. Smith (2002 & 2003), and Zahnle (2001). (11/28/03)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified items S76a, S104a, S507a, S555a, S623a, S688a, and S692a--various relatively minor comments and letters to the Editor--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Six of these items were discovered by myself, and one by James Moore. (11/27/03)
  
  
• The first chapter of my in-preparation online book Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution of an Evolutionist has just been added to the site as a new feature. (11/11/03)
  
  
• I have just added a new feature to the site called 'Wallace on Conservation' which collects together many of Wallace's writings on this subject. (11/6/03)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 9/21/03: S162 & S163, S169, S172, S234, S238, S430, and S456. (10/29/03)
  
  
• Coincidentally I have just been able to finish preparing for online access (see the "Wallace Writings" part of the site) the complete full-text of Wallace's book Man's Place in the Universe (S728: 1903), exactly one hundred years after it was originally published (October 1903 in London, and November 1903 in New York). (10/26/03)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 3/12/03: S126, S130, S133, S158, S176, S273, the concluding passages of The Malay Archipelago, and the essay "An Additional Argument Dependent on the Theory of Evolution," an Appendix added to a new edition of Man's Place in the Universe (S728) in 1904. (9/21/03)
  
  
• Those involved in biogeography and related studies may be interested to know that I have just launched a sister site extension of my Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: To 1950 service titled, predictably, Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: 1951-1975. This new service features links to the full-text of about four hundred items, thanks to JSTOR. (9/20/03)
  
  
• Just one day after reporting the item below I've had the pleasure of receiving in the mail a copy of yet a further monographic work on Wallace, this one by Alfredo Bueno Hernández and Jorge Llorente Bousquets, entitled El Pensamiento Biogeográfico de Alfred Russel Wallace. The 188 page work has been published by the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, as No. 1 of its Colección Luis Duque Gómez series. Strangely, this marks the first book-length study of Wallace's biogeography to reach general publication. (9/5/03)
  
  
• I have it on reliable authority that another biography of Wallace will soon be published, this one by Columbia University Press. The author is a Midwesterner named Ross Slotten; the tentative title is The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace. (9/4/03)
  
  
• Another biography/anthology of Wallace was published several weeks back: Naturalist in the River: The Life and Early Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace. Author William Bryant provides a biographical text complemented by about a dozen of Wallace's published writings from his Amazon and Malay Archipelago days. The full text of the work may be examined at the website of the publisher, iUniverse.com. (6/28/03)
  
  
• A story describing the rediscovery of some of Wallace's Amazonian palm specimens at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew has been published in New Scientist, issue of 5 April 2003. (6/24/03)
  
  
• Congratulations to The Alfred Russel Wallace Page: It has just won a ScientificAmerican.com Sci/Tech Web Award 2003 as one of the fifty best sci-tech subjects-related websites of the year! (5/27/03)
  
  
• A correspondent informs me that a London company called Barebone Films is producing what they call a "45 minute historical drama" entitled "Alfred Russel Wallace: One in a Generation." It is scheduled for completion and first showing in November of this year. (5/18/03)
  
  
• I have just done a bit of re-organization of the Welcome page to accommodate a new feature I have added: 'A Wallace Thesaurus.' The thesaurus consists of a good-sized subject-arranged list of terms and places that are in one way or another connected with Wallace. Another link to it may be found near the site's search window. I also now list on the Welcome page two older lists, the 'Personal Names Index' (which lists the names of people and corporate entities found in Wallace's published writings), and the 'General Subject Index' (which associates Wallace's published writings with a list of general subjects). (3/20/03)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 2/25/03: S121, S208a, S339/S341/S343, S542/S544/S548, S615, and S628/S628a/S628aa. S615 has always been one of my personal favorite Wallace writings. S208a is a newly re-discovered work (thanks to Dr. E. Charles Nelson) on an unusual subject, at least for Wallace. (3/12/03)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 12/23/02: S7, S13, S14, S18, S21, S28, S124, S155, S197/S198, S209, S311, S338, S418, S450, S562, S606, S626, S655, S656, S659, S691, S698, and S747 (an interview). (2/25/03)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 11/12/02: S65, S87, S271, S364, S438, S452, S478, S507, and S508. (12/23/02)
  
  
• I have just put online (in the "Wallace Writings" part of the site) the complete full-text of Wallace's best known writing on land nationalization, the book Land Nationalisation (S722: 1882). (12/21/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 8/31/02: S121, S132, S324, S371, S391, S401, S433, and S476. (11/12/02)
  
  
• I thank George Beccaloni of The Natural History Museum, London, for sending the following report: "On Saturday 14 September 2002 a cast aluminium plaque was unveiled by Wallace's grandson Richard, on a house which Wallace built in 1872 in Grays, Essex, UK. Wallace named the house "The Dell" and it is the only one of the three houses which he built for himself and his family which has survived destruction by modern development. The 'A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund' (Chairman George Beccaloni) designed and paid for the plaque, which forms part of a commemorative plaques scheme being run by Thurrock Local History Society, the Heritage Forum and Thurrock Council. Wallace lived in The Dell from March 1872 until July 1876 and he wrote his books The Geographical Distribution of Animals and On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism whilst he was there. The house is also notable in being one of the earliest surviving shuttered concrete houses in Britain. The Dell is situated at 25 College Avenue and it is currently used as a convent by the La Sainte Union Order of nuns. Although the property is not open to the public, the plaque can be seen from the road (take binoculars!)." (10/30/02)
  
         
  
  
• I have been asked to post the following request: "The Wallace Project at the Open University UK. A major research project on the life of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), eminent naturalist, spiritualist and socialist is underway at the Open University. Its aim is to assemble a complete inventory of Wallace's publications and correspondence. Any other information on his connections with scientific, religious and political organizations would also be welcome. Please contact Dr. C. Garwood, Department of the History of Science, Arts Faculty, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA England (c.garwood@open.ac.uk)." (10/30/02)
  
  
• Those who are intrigued by Wallace's spiritualism and the philosophy he developed in relation to it as a part of evolution might find the work of the Danish mystic Martinus (1890-1981) interesting. See the website of the Martinus Institute as a starting point. (10/20/02)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified items S123a, S126a, S126b, S130a, S130b, S143a, S143b, S154a, S158a, S159a, and S184a--discussions Wallace took part in at meetings of the Entomological Society of London from 1866 through 1871--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Some of these represent very brief remarks on Wallace's part, but also include, among other things, an early defense of mimicry, and Wallace's first expressed reactions to the important experiments of Jenner Weir on the distastefulness of certain caterpillars. (10/6/02)
  
  
• I have just added newly identified minor items S69a, S102a, S102b, and S108a--discussions Wallace took part in at meetings of the Entomological Society of London from 1862 through 1865--to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. (9/13/02)
  
  
• For two rather unusual Wallace images, click on the portrait on the Welcome screen and scroll down to the fourth and fifth images displayed on the page. The first comes from S700, the second from an interview of Wallace published in the 20 January 1909 issue of The Woman Worker. (9/4/02)
  
  
• Another important biography of Wallace has just been published, this one by Michael Shermer, publisher and editor-in-chief of Skeptic Magazine. Titled In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History, it provides a more analytical look at the forces underlying Wallace's life and work than does the recent (2001) Peter Raby biography. (8/31/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 5/11/02: S12, S129, S142a, S150/S152, S179, S303, S380, S486a, S491, S505, S510, S534, S596, S649, S700, and Chapter VI of S720. (8/31/02)
  
  
• I have added two new features to the site: "Smith on Wallace," and "Links." The first links to some online materials of mine on Wallace; the second, to a few select sites of relevance to Wallace studies. (8/29/02)
  
  
• Due to the actions of an overzealous webmaster here all the pages on this site--except the welcome page(s)--have new URLs. This only affects those trying to access individual pages, however; the URL for the frames version of the site remains what it was before. Should you wish to open a page without the frame, you will have to add "wallace/" to the path. For example, if the URL was:   http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/S100.htm   before, it is now:   http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S100.htm   . (8/24/02)
  
  
• The announcement a couple of days ago of the discovery of an early hominid skull dating from seven million years B.P. (i.e., in late Miocene time) and reasonably strongly resembling the facial character of Homo sapiens comes as a surprise. But note that Wallace, in his essay "The Origin of Human Races..." (S93) suggested that the first "humans" might well be of Miocene (or even earlier) age. The newly found form may or may not be our direct ancestor, but its existence will likely affect our thinking on such matters considerably. (7/13/02)
  
  
• I have just done a quick survey of records for published monographic materials found in the bibliographic database WorldCat (effectively, the sum holdings catalog of about 50,000 libraries U.S.- and world-wide) and discovered something interesting. Since 1996, there have been more items including a Wallace subject entry added to the database than any other nineteenth century naturalist, save two: Alexander von Humboldt, and, of course, Darwin. Wallace comes out far ahead of all the rest, including Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel, Lamarck, Agassiz, Gray, Hooker, Weismann, Lyell, Hutton, Owen, and Cope, and even slightly ahead of Mendel. (6/13/02)
  
  
• Two new items have been added to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature: S371a, and S734a. The second work is the new monograph mentioned below; S371a is a particularly interesting find, Wallace's 1884 Presidential Address to the annual meeting of the Land Nationalisation Society. It is the longest (eighteen pages) rediscovered work of Wallace's found in over ten years. (6/8/02)
  
  
• Wallace may have died nearly ninety years ago, but this hardly seems to have slowed him down. Yesterday I received a copy of a new monograph by him, entitled Peixes do Rio Negro/Fishes of the Rio Negro. Ichthyologist Mônica de Toledo-Piza Ragazzo has just published her edition of Wallace's Rio Negro fish drawings, one of the few things he was able to salvage from his shipwreck on the way back from the Amazon in 1852. Published by the Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, Imprensa Oficial do Estado, this is a large work (dimensions 23 x 26 cm., 517 pages) that features plates of all two hundred plus drawings (accompanied by Wallace's original notes), with all auxiliary text, introductory comments, tables, appendices, etc., etc.--offered in both Portuguese and English--by Dr. Toledo-Piza Ragazzo. Apart from the value of the work as a historical document and contribution to biodiversity studies, it also highlights an aspect of Wallace's talents that is usually overlooked: his skill as a sketch artist. (5/21/02)
  
  
• Another anthology of Wallace's writings has just been published by Verso in London and New York. Entitled Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology, it is edited by Andrew Berry, a biologist at Harvard University. Berry's approach is rather different from that taken recently by Jane Camerini in her anthology; the new work surveys the complete range of Wallace's interests by drawing on short excerpts from over a hundred of his writings (although a handful of his most important works are reproduced in full). (5/18/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 4/7/02: S181, S205, S309, S425, S459, S485, S558, S600, S609, S695, and Chapter V.10 of S720. (5/11/02)
  
  
• For those interested in what Wallace's handwriting looked like, here's a sample. (4/8/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 3/10/02: S125, S233, S283, S378, S419, S424, S473, and S493 (also see the note below the following one). Two new items have also been added to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature: S246a, and S595a. (4/7/02)
  
  
• Please note that I have just opened a new site: Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: To 1950 . This service features an "enhanced bibliography" with links to biographical information on the scientist-authors involved, and the full-text of many of the entries in the list. (4/7/02)
  
  
• Thanks to the free access Making of America project being carried out at Cornell and Michigan, I am setting up links to the facsimile originals of a number of Wallace writings that I have not yet myself put up online in full-text. Most of these are from the American magazine Living Age, which reprinted over a dozen of Wallace's articles shortly after they were originally published in England. Along with an item from Century Magazine and two from MOA's copy of Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, a total of fifteen new entries--all of them significant works--have been added to the "Wallace Writings" menu on this basis. These items will also be linked to from the "Wallace Bibliography" list, as will several secondary sources items in the "Writings on Wallace" list. I am also setting up links to a fair number of secondary sources that are available as facsimile originals through the JSTOR service; these also are all in the public domain, but JSTOR is an IP address-controlled subscriber service and the user will only have access on that basis. (3/25/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 2/18/02: S24, S25, S37, S79, S81, S104, S139, S244, and S406. (3/10/02)
  
  
• Note the recent addition of the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' section of the "Writings on Wallace" part of this site: Baker (2001), Barton (2000), Brotman (2001), Camerini (2002), Garwood (2001), and Uchii (1993). (3/2/02)
  
  
• Dr. George Beccaloni of The Natural History Museum, London, has relayed the following important news item, originally posted 4 February: "The Library and the Development Office are pleased to announce that they have successfully completed their campaign to secure funds for the acquisition of the personal library and collections of Alfred Russel Wallace. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was a traveller and naturalist, who together with Charles Darwin, identified Natural Selection as the key to evolutionary change. The collection was exclusively offered to The Natural History Museum at the beginning of 2001 as the owners, Wallace's two grandsons, wanted to ensure the collections which have always been kept together went to a permanent home where they would remain that way. The collection was independently valued at £162,500, and The Natural History Museum agreed to this purchase price. Some of the books and manuscripts in the collection relate to specimens held in the Museum's collections. The acquisition also augments the Museum's existing Wallace holdings, for instance the new material reveals Wallace's post publication thought and reaction to the work of others, notably Darwin. The acquisition makes a major research resource accessible to scholars. Due to the current interest in Wallace and the large amount of quality manuscript material in this acquisition, it is highly probable that The Natural History Museum will use items from the acquisition in future exhibitions and publications." (2/18/02)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site since 11/14/01: S19, S38, S40, S41, S54, S82, S723, S730, Chapters 1 & 19 of S732, and S733. (2/18/02)
  
  
• The question as to whether or not Wallace should be considered a Welshman seems to be heating up. See my thoughts on the matter in the last item in the "FAQ" feature. (2/12/02)
  
  
• A correspondent has informed me that two important Wallace books--The Geographical Distribution of Animals (S718), and Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (S716)--are now available in full text online through the Making of America series at the University of Michigan. (2/12/02)
  
  
• I have just added two new items to the beginning of the "FAQ" feature. (2/6/02)
  
  
• Note the recent addition of the following citations to the 'Selected Modern Secondary Sources' section of the "Writings on Wallace" part of this site: Anonymous (1983), Eaton (1986), Fichman (June 2001), Gander (1998), Gardiner (2000), Jenno (1976), Molina (1996), Morgan (1978), Prance (1999), Spyer (2000), Shermer (1995), and Stepan (2001). (1/27/02)
  
  
• I have just put online (in the "Wallace Writings" part of the site) the complete full-text of three of Wallace's lesser known--but still very interesting!--books: Bad Times (1885), Is Mars Habitable? (1907), and Social Environment and Moral Progress (1913). (1/26/02)
  
  
• A new anthology of Wallace writings has been published under the title The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader: A Selection of Writings from the Field. Editor Jane R. Camerini draws on materials from Wallace's books and articles, his autobiography, and a few other sources. (1/8/02)
  
  
• Artist John Wolseley has won one of the Australian paper art awards for 2001 with his installation "Tracing the Wallace Line," which illustrates the natural history of the Wallace Line region in a manner, according to one reporter, that "identifies the rhapsodist in the naturalist." (12/16/01)
  
  
• At six p.m. on Monday, 26 November, Professor Richard Dawkins will unveil on behalf of the Linnean Society a plaque commemorating the site of the famous Wallace-Darwin lecture of 1858. The event will be held at the Royal Academy of Arts. (11/17/01)
  
  
• An hour-long multimedia production entitled "From Usk to the Malay Archipelago" is being staged at the National Botanic Garden of Wales every day from 27 November through 2 December. The event features the actor Terence Dauncey (as Wallace reminiscing about his life) and a group from Trinity College, Carmarthen. Check the Garden's website for details. (11/12/01)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site: S246, S325/S331/S335/S336/S520/S521, S458/S460/S513, S390/S395/S428/S429, S403, S415, and S10. (11/14/01)
  
  
• The "new" plan English Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested yesterday for selecting members of the House of Lords should sound familiar to students of Wallace's writings: in two essays published some one hundred years ago (S491 and S635) he proposed a very similar approach! (11/09/01)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of this site: S143, S210, S222, S253, S285, S313, S359, S360, S368a, S374/S509, S382, S422, S462/S472/S482/S484/S486/S487/S489, S496, S553/S556, and S622. (10/3/01)
  
  
• A 24-minute educational film entitled "Wallace in Wales" is available for purchase at http://www.ouw.co.uk/courses/A103.shtm. (9/14/01)
  
  
• I have added a new feature to the 'Personal Names Index' section of the "Wallace Bibliography" part of this site: an ordered list entitled 'The Most Important People in Wallace's Intellectual Life' (this is also linked to from the introductory portion of the 'Personal Names Index'). This includes, as possible, links to further information on these individuals. I have also provided (again, as possible) links to information on individuals appearing in the 'Selected Secondary Sources From His Own Time' section of the "Writings on Wallace" part of this site. (8/25/01)
  
  
• I have finally completed the 'Personal Names Index' section of the "Wallace Bibliography" part of this site. All Wallace writings I am currently aware of are now indexed in this service, which includes referrals to nearly 2500 named persons and organizations. (8/23/01)
  
  
• Note the addition of a new major section to the site: "Wallace Archives." This features information on Wallace-related archival sources generously contributed by Michael Shermer.
  
  
• Two of Wallace's best known writings on vaccination have been put up in full text online: Forty-five Years of Registration Statistics, Proving Vaccination to be both Useless and Dangerous (S374, second edition of 1889), and Vaccination a Delusion; Its Penal Enforcement a Crime (S536).
  
  
• The word is starting to get out about Wallace! As of this writing (July 2001) at least seven persons have books on Wallace either in press or in preparation: Andrew Berry, Jane Camerini, Martin Fichman, James Moore, Stephan Pickering, Michael Shermer, and Charles Smith.
  
  
• A story in the November 2000 number of Geographical indicates that a Brazilian biologist shortly will publish the more than 200 pencil drawings that Wallace made of Amazonian fish. These drawings were among the few things that Wallace saved from the shipwreck on his way back to England in 1852.
  
  
• A Wallace "event" took place on 15 April 2000 coinciding with the unveiling of Wallace's restored gravesite in Broadstone Cemetery, Dorset. This was the culmination of a project that had been underway for a good number of months under the auspices of The A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund (Dr. George W. Beccaloni, Chairman) and the Linnean Society of London. The program included a series of lectures presented at the nearby University of Bournemouth. A correspondent writes: "It was a rainy, blowy day but the graveside was crowded with 80 or more, including Wallace biographers Sandra Knapp, John Wilson, and Peter Raby. The Wallace family was represented by grandsons Richard and John, several great-grandchildren, and even a tiny great-great-grandson. Appropriately, a Darwin great-grandson was present to be inducted into the Linnean Society, the retired banker Stephen Keynes. The grave itself had been handsomely restored except for the fossilized tree trunk, which was declared to be in excellent condition after several hundred thousand or million years. Look for photos in an early edition of The Linnean" [my thanks to J.R.M.!]. The project attracted worldwide attention; among other places stories appeared in American Scientist (Volume 87(5), September/October 1999, pp. 407-8), British Journal for the History of Science (Volume 32(115), December 1999, pp. 483-4), and Nature (Volume 400(6744), 5 August 1999, p. 489).
  
  
  The Wallace gravesite: before restoration and after.
  
  
  Sir Ghillean Prance, President of the Linnean Society, accepting the lease of the grave from Wallace's grandsons on behalf of the Society (thanks to Prof. George Beccaloni for sending the photos!).
  
  
• I am sorry to have to report to those who did not know that Barbara G. Beddall, a leading Wallace scholar, passed away on 20 September 1999. Ms. Beddall's final study on Wallace appeared as an entry under his name in the noted Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, published in 1998.