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://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/news.htm

• I have just added item S379a (and its full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. This long letter to the Editor is one of Wallace's best early statistical criticisms of the efficacy of vaccination. (11/12/2024)
  
  
• So far, no one has been able to identify the cause of the annoying formatting error afflicting the 'Modern Secondary Literature' page. The problem can be largely eliminated by horizontally maximizing the page, but if anyone thinks they might know what may be going wrong in the code, please let me know! (10/4/2024)
  
  
• Non-English items can now be isolated in the 'Modern Secondary Literature' page by screen searching for '+__', where '__' is a two letter code given at the top of the list (for example, searching '+PT' finds those items written in Portuguese). (10/4/2024)
  
  
• I have just added a brief item (and its full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. This is: S677a. (9/6/2024)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Anderson (2024), Canseco (2006), Carmo & Martins (2023), Cheng et al. (2023), Costa (2023), Cuthill et al. (2024), Dove (2024), Fayle & Polaszek (2013), Glucklich (1997), Grouw (2020), Heaney (2024), Helgen & Jones (2023), Holleman & Reeuwijk (2020), Hu (1920), King (2023), Kutschera & Ehnes (2023), La Vergata (2023), Meng & Song (2023), Milner (2015), Min (2023, 2023), Peña (2024), Rodríguez Caso & Torrens (2023), Russo (2023), Ruxton et al. (2018), Schneider (2023), Thiagarajah et al. (2023), Visone (2022), Wuketits (2015), and Zhang et al. (2023). (9/6/2024)
  
  
• Thanks to an agreement with the publisher, I have just added access to electronic versions of two of my books on Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace's 1886-1887 Travel Diary (2013) and Dear Sir: Sixty-Nine Years of Alfred Russel Wallace Letters to the Editor (2014) to the site. (2/25/2024)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Anonymous (2015), Beccaloni (2022, 2023, 2023), Brick (2023), Browning (2021), Bueno-Hernández et al. (2023), Caro (2023), Collar & Prys-Jones (2013), Costa & Beccaloni (2023), Cranbrook & Marshall (2014), Denise & Kardinal (2022), Drawhorn (2016, 2017), Ghate (2017), Haggath (2022), Hodge (2023), Hughes & Taib (2022), Karadog & Smith (2023), Lieberman (2000), Lin & Lomas (2022), Lindholm (2022), Morgante (2013), Raby (2014), Sargent (1965), Shermer (2013), Sochaczewski (2023) and Whittaker et al. (2023); also, four new excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (8/9/2023)
  
  
• I have just added eight more items (and the full-text of five of these) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S569a, S596a, S596b, S606c, S623ac, S678a, S683a, and S689b. S683a is the most interesting of these, as in it he lists the eight most gratifying events of his career. (7/2/2023)
  
  
• I have just activated a new feature called "Public Responses to Questions Asked About Alfred Russel Wallace," which solicits questions from the public via email (charles.smith@wku.edu), collecting the results at: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/fquestions.htm (5/16/2023)
  
  
• As of 15 May 2023 I have been presented the Alfred Russel Wallace medal of the Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund for "outstanding contributions to the public understanding of Alfred Russel Wallace's life and work." See story here. (5/15/2023)
  
  
• I have just added excerpts from twenty-one of my own writings (published 2011 or later) to the "Research Threads" page. (2/6/2023)
  
  
• I have just added thirteen new excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (1/25/2023)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Ali & Heaney (2023), Beccaloni (2022), Berry (2023), Berry & Browne (2022), Cameron (2022), Carrington-Smith (2022), Child (1912), Chua (2020), Corral Cuartas (2022), Costa (2023), Davis & Arnocky (2022), Edwards (2021), Finnegan (2021), Guhl (2021), Hortal et al. (2023), Limeira-DaSilva et al. (2021), Lisboa de Andrade (2021), Noble (2021), Nojiri (2021), Phillips (2022), Puzanov (1936), Pylypchuk et al. (2022), Raia (2019), Rees (2022), Reeuwijk & Holleman (2020), Ribas (2023), Riquet (2021), Sanjad & Ximenes (2022), Sera-Shriar (2022), Shen Xiaocheng et al. (2022), Souza (2021), Watanabe (2020), Wool (2021); also the theses by Limeira-Da Silva (2015) and Triolo (2022). (1/17/2022)
  
  
• George Beccaloni has put up a listing of Wallace-related events and publications slated for the 2023 bicentennial, at: https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/content/events-books-etc-commemorate-200th-anniversary-wallaces-birth-2023d. (1/9/2023)
  
  
• I have just added seven miscellaneous book reviews and writings (and their full-text) to the secondary sources lists. (1/5/2023)
  
  
• As of 11/12/2024, a total of 388 new items have at this point 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, 1aa, 1ac, 1b, 1bb, 1bc, 2a, 13a, 14a, 15b, 69a, 76a, 102a, 102b, 104a, 108a, 113a, 123a, 126a, 126b, 130a, 130b, 131a, 140a, 141a, 142a, 142aa, 142ab, 142b, 143a, 143b, 145b, 154a, 158a, 159a, 163a, 167a, 167aa, 168a, 171a, 179aa, 179a, 182a, 184a, 200a, 200aa, 200ab, 200ac, 200b, 204b, 208a, 214a, 220a, 220b, 228a, 246a, 248a, 248ab, 248ad, 248b, 248c, 252a, 252b, 252c, 257b, 258a, 258aa, 263a, 266a, 266aa, 266b, 266c, 268a, 285a, 291a, 294a, 302a, 314a, 315a, 321a, 322a, 323a, 325a, 325b, 327b, 327c, 334a, 334c, 337a, 337b, 342a, 344a, 345a, 345aa, 347a, 354a, 356a, 356aa, 357a, 357c, 358a, 358aa, 358ab, 358ac, 358ae, 360a, 361a, 362b, 364b, 365a, 367a, 367b, 368a, 368ab, 368ac, 368b, 369a, 370a, 370ab, 370b, 371a, 371b, 371c, 373b, 373c, 373d, 374a, 376a, 376aa, 376ac, 376ae, 379a, 383a, 383aa, 383ac, 383b, 384a, 384aa, 385a, 385b, 391a, 392a, 394a, 396a, 397a, 397b, 405a, 408a, 410a, 411a, 414a, 421a, 421b, 420b, 421c, 422a, 425a, 427a, 429a, 438a, 438b, 439a, 439ac, 439ae, 439b, 443a, 446a, 446aa, 447a, 452a, 454a, 457a, 457b, 459a, 467a, 472a, 479a, 480a, 482a, 486a, 488a, 488b, 492a, 493a, 494a, 502a, 504a, 507a, 510a, 513a, 514a, 515a, 518a, 518ac, 519a, 520a, 521a, 521c, 522a, 527a, 527b, 530a, 531a, 531b, 531c, 534b, 535a, 535ab, 535ad, 536b, 541a, 544b, 547aa, 547a, 551a, 554a, 555a, 556a, 557a, 562a, 568a, 568aa, 569a, 570a, 574a, 574aa, 575b, 576a, 576aa, 576ab, 576ac, 576ad, 576af, 576b, 580a, 581a, 581aa, 582a, 591a, 592a, 594a, 595a, 595aa, 595ab, 595b, 595c, 595ad, 595d, 596a, 596b, 597a, 598a, 603a, 603b, 606b, 606c, 608a, 616a, 616b, 616c, 618ac, 618a, 618b, 618c, 619b, 619c, 620a, 622a, 622aa, 623a, 623aa, 623ab, 623ac, 624a, 624b, 627a, 628a, 628aa, 628b, 635a, 635b, 640a, 643a, 646a, 646ad, 646b, 648a, 649a, 650a, 650aa, 650ab, 652a, 652c, 654a, 658a, 658b, 659a, 661a, 661aa, 668a, 668aa, 668b, 670a, 674a, 676a, 676b, 676c, 677a, 678a, 680a, 680b, 680d, 681a, 682a, 683a, 684a, 684c, 686a/707aa, 688a, 688b, 688c, 689a, 689b, 689aa, 690a, 690ab, 691a, 692a, 692b, 696a, 699b, 700a, 700aa, 700ac, 700b, 702a, 702aa, 702ab, 703a, 703ac, 703ad, 703ae, 703b, 703bc, 703c, 705b, 706c, 707a, 707ab, 707ac, 707ad, 707ae, 707af, 707ag, 707ah, 707am, 707an, 707ap, 707ar, 707as, 707b, 707bd, 707c, 708a, 708aa, 711a, 712a, 712aa, 712ab, 712ac, 712ad, 712ae, 712am, 712aw, 712c, 734a, 735a, 735b, 744a, 744b, 748a, 751a, 751b, 752a, 752aa, 752ac, and 752c. The original bibliography of Marchant (1916) included about 387 items (depending on how one counts) and my 1991 book about 752; thus over the years I have been able to add in total about (752 - 387) + 388 = 753 previously unnoticed (at least bibliographically) items to Wallace's publications bibliography (including around fifteen that were referred to me by colleagues). The list of Wallace's published contributions now extends to more than eleven hundred items. (11/12/2024)
  
  
• Some newly searchable serial titles have made it possible to add a fair-sized list of items, and their full-text, to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S145b, S327b, S327c, S356aa, S357c, S358ac, S358ae, S362b, S383ac, S534b, S536b, S544b, S547aa, S576af, S606b, S618ac, S652c, S680d, S699b, S705b. (1/3/2023)
  
  
• Nine medals awarded to Wallace have just been sold at auction for a total of 273,000 pounds, greatly exceeding the high estimate of 80,900 pounds. Eight of these went to a single bidder, Roan Hackney, who purchased them "to ensure they stay together so that one day an institution will have the chance to own them in the future." (7/26/2022)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Bijl et al. (2020), Costa (2021), Egerton (2022), Gayon (2016), Hedley & Caro (2022), Kawano (2022), Langlois (2015), McEntee et al. (2021), Medina Precioso (2021), Meulendijks (2021), Nurbaity et al. (2021), Shen et al. (2022). (5/5/2022)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Abberley (2017), Ali & Heaney (2021), Carmo (2021), Egerton (2019), Flannery (2020), Focher (2020), Galli (2020), Haller (2020), Healy et al. (2015), Hsu (2020), Kemp (2017), Lima (2020), Limeira-DaSilva (2021), Rodriguez Caso (2020, 2020), Sharpe (1868-1871), Shmuely (2020), Soldado et al. (2020), Verney (1877), Wyhe (2020); also, Heilprin (1889) to the "Book Reviews" section, and Soldado (2017) to the "Theses" section. (9/3/2021)
  
  
• I have just added three more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S204b, S706c, and S707bd. S706c is especially interesting, clarifying Wallace's evolutionary position on beauty. (4/22/2021)
  
  
• I have just added another item (and its full-text) to the Wallace publications list: S364b. In addition I have added about eighteen items to the older secondary sources list, two obituaries, and eighteen miscellaneous book reviews. (4/21/2021)
  
  
• I have just added five more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S370ab, S373b, S373c, S373d, and S752c. (1/14/2021)
  
  
• I have just added listings of the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Anonymous (1886), Blitz (1992), Budil (2014), Cattell (1896), Costa (2013), Crookes (1903), Diaz (2014), Gould (1858), G. R. Gray (1858, 1859, 1859 & 1860), J. E. Gray (1858, 1860), Hiriart (2018), Leyin (2014 & 2014), Lima (2013), McLachlan (1879), Middleton (2020), Nojiri (2009), Parrinder (2017), Stevens (1861), Thompson & Christian (2001), Tiddeman (1873), Walker (1857, 1857, 1857, 1857 & 1870), and Williams (2020); also, several items to the "Theses" "Research Threads", and "Book Reviews" sections. (11/20/2020)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Aznar (2019), Bellés (2013), Berry (2020), Brook (2018), Bruni (2008), Buchanan & Bradley (2017), Dorion (2020), Fisler et al. (2020), Haller (2020), Hammer (2005), Morris (2018), Partridge (2020), Reeuwijk (2018), Rockman & Castelli (2018), Rodríguez Caso (2019), Santos (2019), Sidgwick (1888), Souza & Brzezinski (2015), Stefanelli-Silva et al. (2019), Stevens (2016), Tymn (2007), Verdejo Segura (2019), Whincup (2020), and Wolfe (2016); also, several items to the "Research Threads" section. (7/13/2020)
  
  
• I have just added seven more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S334c, S376ac, S376ae, S420b, S439ae, S659a, and S707an. (5/22/2020)
  
  
• Beginning with Note 10, written by Derek Partridge, the Wallace Notes series will be open to the publication of manuscripts by authors other than myself (I will remain the series Editor). New titles will be refereed and published open access at the Western Kentucky University electronic repository site upon acceptance. Write to me for further instructions. (4/23/2020)
  
  
• I have just added the following items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S337a, S337b, S344a, S345aa, S480a, S702ab, and S703bc. (3/14/2020)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections: Abberley (2019), Brumm et al. (2019), Elstob (2018), González (2018, 2018), Hesketh (2019), Keeler (1891), Marks (2019), Sales & Oliveira (2019), Sera-Shriar (2018), Silva (2019), Souza (2018), Sysling (2019), Verdejo Segura (2017), Vereecken (2018), Soldado (2017), and Souza (2014) (the last two, in the theses section). (2/22/2020)
  
  
• I have just added six more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S252c, S531c, S575b, S751a, S751b, and S752ac. The last three of these are interviews. (10/6/2019)
  
  
• I have just added seven more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S576ad, S581aa, S624b, S700ac, S702aa, S703ad, and S703ae. (9/17/2019)
  
  
• I have just added five more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S494a, S521c, S522a, S541a, and S595ad. All appeared in the Socialist newspaper The Clarion. (8/22/2019)
  
  
• I have a new monographic publication on Wallace, of which I am first editor, and to which I contribute three chapters: An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion, edited by Charles H. Smith, James T. Costa, and David Collard, and published by the University of Chicago Press (June 2019). (7/12/2019)
  
  
• I have just added five more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S163a, S248ad, S367a, S367b, and S383b. (7/12/2019)
  
  
• I have just added a unique item, S347a, to the Wallace publications list, and with much assistance gotten together a full-text transcription, which is from the original German. I and two other investigators are also publishing a translation of the article in the Fall 2019 issue of the Archives of Natural History. (2/19/2019)
  
  
• I have just added four more items (and their full-text) to the Wallace publications lists. These are: S527b, S531b, S650ab, and S688c. (9/23/2017)
  
  
• Over the past few weeks I have found no fewer than seventeen previously overlooked Wallace publications, and put them up online: S258aa, S385b, S394a, S396a, S515a, S576ab, S603b, S616c, S622aa, S650aa, S658b, S661aa, S670a, S676b, S676c, S682a, and S689aa. They are all short to very short, and run the gamut subject-wise. I have also added mention of two "recent" (Hughes (2008), Porter (1993)) and four "contemporary" (Anon. (1887), Anon. (1887), Holiday (1908), Shipman (1903)) secondary sources, and three book reviews, to their respective lists. (7/7/2017)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Alvarado (2015), Anderson (1992), Berry (2014), Cochran et al. (2016), Collins (2015), Cornish (2015), Cranbrook & Mann (2016), Das & Pui (2015), Ebach & Parenti (2015), Flannery (2016), Gómez (2015), Hortal et al. (2015), Morrison (2016), Müller (2015), Neumann (2017), Ragan (2009), Riddle (2016), Schär (2015), Sivasundaram (2015), C. Smith (2016), Sochaczewski (2016), Toussaint et al. (2015), Weale (2015), Wilson (2016), and Van Wyhe (2016, 2016). (5/30/2017)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Allchin (2014), Attenborough (2015), Berry (2015, 2015), Caro (2017), Chhem (2013), Clement (2016), Cluysenaar (2010), Drury & Burroughs (2016), Ferguson (2015), Fichman (2015, 2015), Flores Villela et al. (2013), Fuller (2015), Härlin (2015), Lowrey (2015), McCalman (2011), Milner (2014), O'Hanlon et al. (2013), Olesen (2013), Packer (2015), Rodrigues Horta (2016), Rodríguez et al. (2015), Ross (2015), Ruiz Gutiérrez & Rodríguez Caso (2013), Scholes & Laman (2015), Simberloff (2014), R. Smith (2015), and Vetter (2015). (4/8/2017)
  
  
• The full-texts of S140a, S649a, and S703c are now available in the "Wallace Writings" section of the site. (2/16/2016)
  
  
• I have just added three more new items (S140a, S649a, and S703c) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature; I should have the text for these up shortly. I have also added more than seventy secondary sources to the "Writings on Wallace" sections. (1/8/2016)
  
  
• I have just added ten newly found Wallace-authored texts to the site in the "Wallace Writings" section of the site. These are those noted directly below; i.e.: S1bb, S1bc, S171a, S467a, S530a, S618c, S619c, S640a, S668b, and S689a. The letter fragments constituting 'S707as' may be found in the writing given here. (3/11/2015)
  
  
• I have just added eleven more new items (S1bb, S1bc, S171a, S467a, S530a, S618c, S619c, S640a, S668b, S689a, and S707as) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. (2/28/2015)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Charwat (2014), Cicuzza (2014), Costa (2014), Costa & Beccaloni (2014), Crawforth (2009), Evenhuis (2003), Fichman (2014), Guerrero & Margulis (2013), Heaney (2013), How & Zanker (2014), Lester (2014), Lloyd (2015), Stevenson (2009), Tsao (2013), and van Wyhe (2012). (2/28/2015)
  
  
• For those of you in the Los Angeles area, note the upcoming (15 November 2014) conference, the "Alfred Russel Wallace Centennial Celebration at UCLA," about which more information may be found at: http://www.environment.ucla.edu/events/271 . (11/2/2014)
  
  
• I have just added another four excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (2/20/2014)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Aguiar et al. (2013), Anonymous (1972), Beck (2013), Berry et al. (2013), Conlin (2014), Coronado (2013), Deen et al. (2013), Elkin (1964), Ewan (1972), Ferreira (2013), Flannery (2013), Fosberg (1990), Greydanus (2012), Hossfeld (2004), Hugh-Jones (1988), Knapp (2013), Kutschera (2013), May (2013), Michaux (2013), O'Hanlon et al. (2014), Prance (1990), Raby (2013), Reeuwijk (2013), Rueda et al. (2013), Sochaczewski (2012), Whittaker et al. (2013), and Zinsser (1990). (2/1/2014)
  
  
• Talks by botanist Sandra Knapp and natural historian Errol Fuller will be featured at a "Wallace event" to be held at the Hertford Theatre, Hertford, on Wednesday, 15 January, at 7:30 pm. (1/3/2014)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Berra (2013), Bowler (2013), Brinton (1913), Costa (2013), Earl of Cranbrook (2013), Gunnell (2013), Hossfelt & Olsson (2013), Ibrahim & Kutschera (2013), Kutschera (2013), Kutschera & Hossfeld (2013), Kutschera & Kleiinhans (2013), Kutschera & Niklas (2013), Laverty (2013), Levit & Polatayko (2013), Preston (2013), Ruse (2013), Smith (2013, 2013), and van Wyhe (2013). Some additions were also made to the “Obituaries” and “Book Reviews” sections. (12/20/2013)
  
  
• Today marked the first day of the Second International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace, being held in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Also today, a statue of Wallace was revealed at the Museum of Natural History in London, with Sir David Attenborough in attendance. Sir David will also be speaking after the conclusion of the Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, to be held on the 12th of this month. Last but not least (at least, to me!), I understand that my book Enquête sur un Aventurier de l'Esprit: Le Véritable Alfred Russel Wallace was published today in Paris by Editions de l'Evolution. (11/7/2013)
  
  
• Today, of course, is the one hundredth anniversary of Wallace's death on 7 November 1913. Rest in peace, Alf! (11/7/2013)
  
  
• A new wasp genus discovered on the island of Borneo has been named Wallaceaphytis in honor of Wallace. It's actually a nasty little creature, but I suppose everything is beautiful, in its own way... See the write-up and video here. (11/7/2013)
  
  
• Note the wonderful "The Animated Life of A. R. Wallace," at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/opinion/the-animated-life-of-ar-wallace.html?_r=0 . (11/4/2013)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Allchin (2012), Allen (2013), Ebach (2013), Gallardo (2013), Mashad (2011), Porter (2012), whipplelib (2013), Wu (1975), van Wyhe (2013), and van Wyhe & Rookmaaker. (10/27/2013)
  
  
• I have just put up around 45 pdf versions of obituaries found in the "Obituaries" section of the site. This increases to more than 50 the number of texts now accessible in that section. (10/15/2013)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Anderson (2013), Benton (2013), Berry (2013), Brake (2012), Davies (2013), Glaubrecht (2013), Holt et al. (2013), Kutschera (2013), Quammen (2013), Smith (2013), Smith & Derr (2013), and van Wyhe (2013). (8/8/2013)
  
  
• The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RISC) has just honored Wallace with a posthumous honorary membership. (7/4/2013)
  
  
• The Natural History Museum (London) has recently set up the Wallace Discovery Trail within the building so that visitors may "discover some of Wallace's most important specimens and retrace his journey around the world." (7/4/2013)
  
  
• According to a recent story in the Borneo Post Online, the Sarawak Museum Department will be setting up a gallery at the Museum dedicated to Wallace. This should happen before the end of the year. (7/4/2013)
  
  
• I have just added a transcription of the first portions of the book The Geographical Distribution of Animals (S718) to the "Wallace Writings" section of the site. This focuses on general principles and still makes for a good read. (4/26/2013)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Ecob (n.d.), Hoquet (2011), Kanduc (2012), Loxtone (1888), Rookmaaker & van Wyhe (2012). and Rosenau (2012); also listings of some additional obituaries and book reviews. (3/30/2013)
  
  
• I have just added transcriptions of several individual chapters and appendices from the original 1898 edition of The Wonderful Century (S726) to the "Wallace Writings" section of the site. These include "The Causes of the Improvement in the Health of London...", "The Remedy for Want in the Midst of Wealth", "The Opposition to Hypnotism and Psychical Research", "Militarism--The Curse of Civilization", "The Demon of Greed", and "The Plunder of the Earth--Conclusion". (3/21/2013)
  
  
• There is to be a "Wallace Day" held at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge on 20 April 1913. Speakers/panelists will include Janet Browne, E. O. Wilson, John Durant, and others. For information on tickets, etc., click here. (3/21/2013).
  
  
• I have just added eight newly found Wallace-authored items and their texts to the site in the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" and "Wallace Writings" sections of the site, respectively. These are: S1a, S248ab, S257b, S354a, S369a, S493a, S518ac, and S707ap. (3/2/2013)
  
  
• Dr. Christine Garwood will give a talk entitled "Wallace and the Flat Earth Controversy" at the Natural History Museum, London, on 5 March 2013, 5 to 6 p.m. (2/12/2013)
  
  
• I have just added the texts of three more works to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site: S117, S246a, and S662. With these additions I have completed the task of transcribing all of Wallace's known shorter works (save a few very insignificant items, and about fifteen memorials to which he probably did little more than contribute his name as a signature), and the greater portion of his books (all of which are now easily accessible online, so there seems little point in taking the time; however, I will probably continue to add certain portions of books which stand on their own). I will, moreover, continue to add transcriptions for newly-discovered items (and even now I am aware of several to get to work on!). (2/2/2013)
  
  
• I have just added the texts (including tables and color plates) of two long works on butterflies, S96 and S127, to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site. This version of S96 is the one Wallace modified for inclusion in his book Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection in 1870; it deletes the systematics section in the original version, but adds new discussion. S127 is a 120-page revision of the Pieridae that he published in 1867. (1/26/2013)
  
  
• My new book Alfred Russel Wallace's 1886-1887 Travel Diary: The North American Lecture Tour will be published on January 1 and the publisher, Siri Scientific Press, is already taking orders. Information here. (12/19/2012)
  
  
• I have just added the texts (including tables and color plates) of two long systematics works, S96 and S135, to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site. S96 is the famous paper on Papilionidae that introduced the concept of polymorphism; S135 is a revision of Malaysian members of the beetle family Cetoniidae. Both contain various observations on other subjects of evolutionary and biogeographical interest. (12/17/2012)
  
  
• Another Wallace conference for 2013 has been announced: 'Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary 2013,' a two-day meeting (7-8 June 2013) jointly sponsored by the Society for the History of Natural History, the Linnean Society of London, and Bournemouth University. Both historical and modern subjects related to Wallace studies will be entertained. (12/5/2012)
  
  
• I have just added S420, the transcript of Wallace's 1890 testimony before a Royal Commission on Vaccination, to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site. This is a very long item (in fact, considerably longer than several of Wallace's entire books). My transcription made use of John van Wyhe's at his "Wallace Online" website, but incorporates additions and text corrections. (11/28/2012)
  
  
• I have just added another eighteen excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (11/15/2012)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Agnarsson & Kuntner (2012), Bignami (2011), Bini et al. (2006), Caponi (2011), Cardoso et al. (2011), Carmo (2011), DelMonte (2011), Díaz-Muñoz (2012), Fernandes et al. (2012), Prum (2012), Stelbrink et al. (2012), Stevens & Merilaita (2011), Stott (2012), and Van Welzen et al. (2011). (11/15/2012)
  
  
• A new book by Tim Preston has been announced for 2013: The Letter from Ternate. Details on this special-issue title may be retrieved here. (11/4/2012)
  
  
• According to a recent interview, noted author Tom Wolfe's next book, to be titled The Human Beast, will begin with a depiction of Wallace's malarial fit in 1858. (11/4/2012)
  
  
• Paul Sochaczewski's new book on Wallace and related subjects--An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles--is about to be published. (10/19/2012)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Alves (2011), Carmo et al. (2012), Christensen (2011), Davies (2012), Egerton (2012 & 2012), Flannery (2012), Gayon (2009 & 2010), Green (2012), Howes (2012), Kutschera (2012), Liu (2010), Lohman et al. (2011), Marranghello & Consul (2004), Price (2011), Proches & Ramdhani (2012), Smith (2012), Soler & Moreno (2012), Van Wyhe & Rookmaaker (2012), Wainwright & Alharbi (2011), and Williams (1893). I have also added five obituaries and about twenty period book reviews on various titles, mostly drawn from the excellent Australian database Trove. (10/13/2012)
  
  
• I have just added a high resolution scan of the fold-out map of Wallace's travel routes through the Indonesia area 1854-1862 that appeared in his autobiography My Life in 1905. I have placed in the "ARW-Related Maps & Figures" feature, here. (10/13/2012)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 4/29/12: S15b, S70, S248c, S252b, S472a, S582a, S616b, S680b and S712ae. (10/3/2012)
  
  
• I have just added seven more new items (S15b, S248c, S252b, S472a, S582a, S616b, and S680b) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. (9/30/2012)
  
  
• John van Wyhe's "Wallace Online" website has just been launched at http://wallace-online.org/ . John's site features a vast array of writings on and by Wallace and many images of Wallace's specimens. (9/29/2012)
  
  
• The '2nd International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace--His Predecessors and Successor Naturalists, Explorers and Field Scientists in South-East Asia and Australasia,' organized by the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation, UNIMAS, has been announced for 7 to 8 November 2013. For details see: http://www.unimas.my/Wallace2013/ (9/27/2012)
  
  
• The Wallace Centenary Project, administered by Richard Milner, has just been announced. This provides funding for various Wallace-related projects (museum displays, conferences, ongoing projects, etc.). Details may be found at George Beccaloni's "Alfred Russel Wallace Website," at: http://wallacefund.info/call-ideas-wallace-centenary-project . Richard Milner may be reached at:  rmilner@nyc.rr.com . (7/23/12)
  
  
• The Wallace Memorial fund has started a campaign to raise money for a life-size bronze statue of Wallace for the Natural History Museum (London). For details, please see:  http://wallacefund.info/statue . (7/18/12)
  
  
• You'll love the 'Wallace Was a Very Busy Man' song at the Pyr Project site (under "What We Do"), at: http://www.pyrproject.com/  (7/5/12)
  
  
• Note the Wallace Darwin Science Symposium to be held 4-7 September 2012 at Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Sulawesi. Information on programs can be obtained at:  http://www.unhas.ac.id/wallacedarwinsymp/ (5/22/12)
  
  
• I have just put up online transcriptions of three long works: the remaining two of the three lectures delivered at Newcastle in November 1867 ('On the Climate & Vegetation of the Tropics' and 'Lecture on Animal Life in the Tropics'), and a late essay on biogeography for an encyclopedic collection (S684a). All of these are effectively newly discovered, as I am not aware of any references to them before I came upon them some months back. (4/29/12)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 2/21/12: S2, S69a, S76a, S101, S102a, S102b, S103, S104a, S108a, S120, S130a, S130b, S142, S143a, S154a, S159a, S184a, S204, S228, S230, S252a, S254, S256, S260, S263a, S266a, S266c, S277, S278, S291a, S294, S314a, S334, S357a, S363, S370a, S371b, S376, S383a, S397a, S443a, S448, S454a, S457b, S477, S514a, S521a, S535a, S539, S543, S550, S555a, S556a, S564, S570, S594a, S605, S607, S619b, S629, S636, S643a, S654a, S661a, S668a, S674, S675, S676a, S688b, S690, S703ac, and S712a. Almost all of these are very short notes, comments, and letters to the Editor. (4/23/12)
  
  
• I have been told of a planned conference entitled "One Hundred Years After Wallace," to be held in March 2013 in Mexico City, sponsored by The School of Sciences (Facultad de Ciencias) at UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico). More details will be available as the date nears. (3/17/12)
  
  
• I have just put up online another manuscript transcription, this one of an 1867 lecture entitled 'On the Races of Man in the Malay Archipelago.' This is the third of three delivered at Newcastle in November of that year; over the next several weeks I hope to put up the first two in the set. (3/17/12)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 11/24/11: S60, S142b, S179a, S179aa, S251, S293, S345a, S374a, S397b, S400, S405a, S408a, S413, S417, S421c, S429a, S457a, S488b, S504a, S511, S513a, S570a, S611, S618, S623ab, S627, S635a, S652a, S658a, S668aa, S671, S681, S684c, S707a, S707ac, S707ad, S707af, S707ag, S707b, S708a, S709, S710, S711, S712, S712aw, and S712c (plus "Visit to Alfred Russel Wallace", an unpublished typescript, to the "Wallace Interviews" section). Most of these are letters Wallace sent to various people that found their way into print, sometimes many years later. (2/21/12)
  
  
• I have been able to transcribe and put up online several more of the unpublished manuscripts. These include: "Note on the Smoke Nuisance," "Reciprocity: A Reply to Sir Louis Mallet, C.B.," "The Supposed Polar Origin of Life," "Supposed 'Dimensions' of Space as Possible Realities," "The Alleged Appreciation of Gold," and "The Chief Humanitarians of the Nineteenth Century." (2/19/12)
  
  
• Something new... I have recently come across several Wallace manuscripts which appear never to have reached print. I will add transcriptions of these as I finish them, but will not include them in the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, which deals almost entirely with in-print items. However, I will include links to them on the "Wallace Writings" list of full-texts I have created. I will also notice them here. The first is an intriguing book review, from about 1902, that reinforces our appreciation that Wallace had no use for theosophy. Its title is "Eternalism: A Theory of Infinite Justice." (1/6/12)
  
  
• I have just added five more new items (S374a, S658a, S684c, S703ac, and S712ae) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, and several dozen items to the nineteenth and early twentieth century literature portion of the "Writings on Wallace" section. (1/5/12)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 7/10/11: S342a, S383aa, S535ab, S535ad, S568aa, S595ab, S616a, S646ad, and S707ar (plus S752aa to the "Wallace Interviews" section). (11/24/11)
  
  
• I have just added another thirty excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (11/15/11)
  
  
• I have just added ten more new items (S342a, S383aa, S535ab, S535ad, S568aa, S595ab, S616a, S646ad, S684a, and S707ar) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature (and S752aa to the "Wallace Interviews" section). Several of these are quite interesting (S684a, for example, is Wallace's last (1910) good-sized summary of this thoughts on the geographical distribution of animals); I will try to get the texts transcribed and up online as soon as I get a chance. (10/16/11)
  
  
• I recently found another late interview of Wallace, published in the Morning Post (London) issue of 8 January 1913. The interviewer brings up the subject of Wallace's early involvement with surveying, and Wallace is quoted as saying "The work did not suit me well; in fact, I hated it." This is to say the least a bit surprising: it has always been assumed that he liked his outdoor work from this period. Perhaps, however, he more liked the "outdoor" part of it than the surveying itself. (10/11/11) A communication (12/22/11) from my colleague George Beccaloni seems to indicate that this was some sort of error, however, as he has seen an 1859 letter to Wallace's brother-in-law Mr. Sims in which Wallace expresses himself as having enjoyed his surveying work. (12/22/11)
  
  
• I have just put up online a transcription of the original monographic version of Vaccination a Delusion (S536). My thanks to website www.whale.to for saving me some time by letting me start out with text they originally scanned. (7/29/11)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Arita (2008), Balke et al. (2009), Benton (2009), Boekhout van Solinge (2008), Browne (2010), Camus (2009), Caponi (2009), Carmo et al. (2009), Carstensen & Olesen (2009), Cox et al. (2010), Damiani (2009), Deacon (2010), Ellen (2011), Escalante et al. (2010), Esselstyn et al. (2010), Flores-Villela (1988), Forbes (2009), González Recio (2010), Gregory (2009), Hall (2009), Hanson (2011), Kreft & Jetz (2010), Kruse (2010), Kunte (2009), Kutschera (2009), Lane (2011), Leonard (2009), Lier (2010), Lima (2009), Livi (1990), Mallet (2010), Manríquez (2010), Marais (2009), Michaux (2009), Milam (2010), Morwood et al. (2009), Müller et al. (2010), Oliver & Monteiro (2011), Parnell (2009), Penniston (2009), Punzalan & Hosken (2010), Revets (2009), Ruiz Pérez (2009), Rundell (2011), Seaward (2010), Van den Bergh (2010), and Wells (2008). (7/26/11)
  
  
• I have just added another twenty-seven excerpts to the "Research Threads" page. (7/19/11)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 4/23/11: S1aa, S268a, S323a, S358aa, S358ab, S376aa, S410a, S492a, S681a, S700aa, and S707am. S1aa is at the moment the earliest known Wallace publication. (7/10/11)
  
  
• An "Alfred Russel Wallace Exhibit" is offered through the end of July at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center, 4500 Sioux River Road, Sioux City, Iowa (telephone 712 258-0838 for further information). This is , it will be remembered, one of the cities that Wallace visited during his 1886-87 lecture tour of North America. (7/5/11)
  
  
• A lecture entitled "Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace--the Lives of Two 'Butterfly Hunters'" will be presented by Peter Thompson of the Leicester Secular Society at Secular Hall (75 Humberstone Gate, Leicester, U.K.) on Sunday, July 17. (7/5/11)
  
  
• I have just added eleven more new items (S1aa, S268a, S323a, S358aa, S358ab, S376aa, S410a, S492a, S681a, S700aa, S707am) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature; several more are being processed. The most recently found item, S1aa, is both the oldest now-known Wallace publication (10 May 1845), and the one thousandth now-known Wallace publication. (6/28/11)
  
  
• I have just added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Anonymous (2002), Donoghue (2011), M. Flannery (2008, 2011), T. Flannery (2010), Gayon (2010), Goins (2008), Gross (2010), Hale (2010), Hanau (2010), Helmreich (1997), Lewis (1964), Lloyd et al. (2010), Lowrey (2010), Loxdale (2010), McCarthy (2009), Michaux (2010), Riddle & Hafner (2010), Sudekum (2010), Travis (2010), and Tsao (2009, 2010). (5/5/11)
  
  
• The Chronicle of Higher Education notes a new article in the International Journal of Primatology describing a new species of tarsier from Sulawesi: Tarsius wallacei, named in honor of Wallace. (4/25/11)
  
  
• The Usk Astronomical Society in Monmouthshire has finished its new observatory, which is to be named after Wallace (according to www.stargazerslounge.com). (4/25/11)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 3/12/11: S214a, S220a, S220b, S228a, S583, S623, S700b, and S752a. S583 and S623 had previously been available through links to off-site locations only. (4/23/11)
  
  
• I have just added six more new items (S214a, S220a, S220b, S228a, S700b, and S752a) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. The first four regard the Bedford Canal experiment; the fifth is a letter concerning the Insurance Act of 1913; the last, a short third-person interview that appeared in 1913. (4/2/11)
  
  
• I have just completed a revision of the "Personal Names Index" feature that resulted in over fifteen hundred edits, including corrections, additions, deletions and content enhancements. One thing I gave more attention to this time around was cross-listing the many incorrect spellings of personal names that appear in Wallace's works. (3/23/11)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 10/9/10: appendix to S243, S248a, S361a, S370b, S371c, S414a, S438a, S438b, S439ac, S452a, S551a, S568a, S576ac, S608a, S696a, S704, and prefaces to S717. (3/12/11)
  
  
• I have just added twenty-three more new items (S252a, S291a, S361a, S370b, S371b, S371c, S383a, S414a, S438a, S438b, S439ac, S452a, S454a, S457a, S457b, S521a, S535a, S551a, S568a, S576ac, S608a, S688b and S696a) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. All are gardening-related and many are very brief and largely insignificant, but there are also some longer comments that pull in elements of biogeography, systematics, and heredity. (1/5/11)
  
  
• I thought I'd mentioned this earlier, but I guess not... A project called Wallace Online was set up in 2009 at the National University of Singapore by Dr. John van Wyhe. Its goal is to digitize all of Wallace's published works (plus manuscripts, as available). The project is scheduled to last three years. (1/4/11)
  
  
• According to my colleague George Beccaloni and his Wallace Correspondence Project, "the WCP is a founder member of Wallace100. Wallace100 is an international association of partners with projects designed to come to fruition in time for the 100th anniversary of Wallace’s death in 2013. Colleagues in Brazil, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Britain are already considering activities to commemorate the centenary of his death, which would highlight the unrivalled collections of insect and bird specimens he made in the former four countries, as well as his seminal contributions to science and other fields. Ideas include a large travelling exhibition which would tour venues in several countries.' (1/4/11)
  
  
• George Beccaloni has put together a large selection of Wallace photos, here. (12/28/10)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 5/26/10: S122, S218, S258, S258a, S262, S302a, S317, S384aa, S446aa, S507a, S512, S648a, S686a, S691a, and S707ah. These cover a wide range of subjects, but are mostly rather minor items (with the exception of S512). (10/9/10)
  
  
• A short comedy film to be titled "Wallace" is in preparation. See details at: http://films.talkinganimal.co.uk/wallace/ . (9/8/10)
  
  
• The Richard Hale Association has put out an appeal to raise funds for a new scholarship that has Wallace's name attached to it. For more information, google "Alfred Russel Wallace Travel and Education Scholarship". (8/22/10)
  
  
• George Beccaloni writes with the good news that his proposed Wallace Correspondence Project has been funded by a sizable grant from the Mellon Foundation. Hundreds or thousands of Wallace archival materials (including letters, notes, clippings, manuscripts, etc.) will be scanned and made available on the Internet. George's budget includes funds to support a full-time archivist for three years. (8/20/10)
  
  
• A correspondent informs me that Wallace: "is the protagonist of the new play performed at Museu da Vida [Museum of Life], a Brazilian science centre in Rio de Janeiro linked to Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. The play, named "Pergunte a Wallace" in Portuguese, is an adaptation of the British performance "You Should Ask Wallace," written and directed by Geinor Styles, artistic director of a theatre company in Wales. A monologue based in Wallace´s biography My Life, "You Should ask Wallace" focuses on the aspects of Alfred Wallace's inspirational character. It shows how a young adventurer, fascinated by the nature, undertook the journey that led him to the idea of evolution by natural selection and turned him into one of the most respected naturalists of history. Performances are at 10:30 am and 1:30 pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in June and July, and at 2:00 pm Saturdays through the same period. At the Museum of Life, Wallace is also featured in the exhibition "Evolution and Tropical Nature," which shows how the tropics inspired both Wallace and Darwin in the formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, particularly the Brazilian biodiversity, one of the richest in the world. The play and the exhibition integrate the celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity in Brazil." For more information: http://www.museudavida.fiocruz.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?UserActiveTemplate=mvida&infoid=1447&sid=22  (6/17/10)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings"and "Wallace Interviews" parts of the site since 3/28/10: S2a, S531a, and S735b. (5/26/10)
  
  
• New items S2a, S384aa, S712c, and S735b have been added to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, and the following to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Bock (2010), Bowler (2009), Glickman (2009), Lyons (2009), Mallet (2009), Marsh (1958), Ruskin (2009), C. Smith (2010), C. Smith & Taylor (2010), C. Smith et al. (2010), and Weber (2010). (5/25/10)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 3/4/10: S142ab, S213, S334a, S376a, S411a, S435, S443, S479a, 488a, S595aa, S598, S613, S619, S622a, S628b, S646b, S652, S654, S680, S680a, S682, S688, S690aa, S696, and S702. These cover a wide range of subjects, but are mostly rather minor items. (3/28/10)
  
  
• I have just connected up over half of the citations listed in the "Wallace Images" feature to Google Books and other online repository sources. (3/9/10)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 11/09/09: S1b, S439b, S576aa, S581a, and S708aa. (3/4/10)
  
  
• I have put up online high resolution images of portraits of Emma Hardinge Britten and Robert Owen, and Wallace from an 1887 publication and an 1891 publication. (3/3/10)
  
  
• New items S1b and S691a have been added to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, and the following to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Aflalo (1913), Anonymous (1870, 1871), Ballard (2008), Barton & Rodriguez de Cara (2009), Benton (2009), Bock (2009), Bull (1871), Clodd (1891), Collard (2009), Harris (1908), Keezer (1965), Kirschmann (1905), O'Connell (2009), Rosenfeld (2009), Saleeby (1903), Schmitt (2009), Tristram (1859), Vetter (2010), and Wilson (1882). S1b is the second oldest known Wallace publication, a co-authored letter to the House of Commons remarking on posed legislation, and linking him with the Neath Public Library. The identification of S1b represents a milestone, as it marks the two hundredth electronic addition to my 1991 hardcopy bibliography of Wallace's published writings--obvously, he continues to be a formidable bibliographic challenge! (2/28/10)
  
  
• Royal Mail Stamps in the U.K. has just issued a set of commemorative stamps to celebrate this year's 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. Ten of the Society's most prominent fellows are featured, including Wallace. See here. (2/26/10)
  
  
• OUP has notified me that the paperback edition of Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace (edited by George Beccaloni and yours truly) will be published and available in England on March 11th; in the U.S. it will be published in May. (2/24/10)
  
  
• I highly recommend the chapter on Wallace (Chapter 2) of Cannon Schmitt's 2009 Cambridge University Press book Darwin and the Memory of the Human; Evolution, Savages, and South America. (2/24/10)
  
  
• I've been told that Wallace's birthplace in Usk is for sale at the price of 525,000 British pounds--do we have any wealthy Wallace fans out there who would like to purchase the property and turn it into a museum? (2/18/10)
  
  
• I have just (finally) added a high resolution scan of the famous map of the Rio Negro region that Wallace included in his essay "On the Rio Negro" (S11). Online magnification of the image should bring out even the smallest lettering (right click open/view image in options menu). See here. (2/3/10)
  
  
• Once again the migrators have struck--all the URLs at this site (and my other online services) have been changed to their permanent configuration: thus, "web2.wku.edu" is now "people.wku.edu". 'Not to worry; aliases have again been set up. Any new links to these pages should use the "people.wku.edu" tag. (1/19/10)
  
  
• Visitors may notice that the URLs to all the pages at this site have changed: the University has moved to a new server, and all the old addresses including "www.wku.edu" have migrated to "web2.wku.edu." Aliases for all pages involved have been set up, however, so all previously existing links should still work. If there are any problems in this direction please let me know! (11/12/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 10/21/09: S200aa, S200ab, S200ac, S200b, S211, and S482a. (11/9/09)
  
  
• I have just added new items S200ac and S708aa to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, and the following to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Aliabadian et al. (2008), Forsdyke (2009), Glaubrecht (2008), Kohler (2009, McGhie (2009), Mestre (1918), Muchhala & Thomson (2009), Steinheimer (2003), and Varki et al. (2008). (11/7/09)
  
  
• An exhibition titled "A. R. Wallace--The Forgotten Evolutionist" by artist Fred Langford Edwards begins on 5 November and runs through 8 February 2010 at the Museum of Zoology, Downing Street, Cambridge, U.K. "This exhibition is part of a Wellcome Trust funded project to research and promote the contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace to the theories of Natural Selection and Evolution. Working with Dr George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, Fred Langford Edwards has explored many university and public collections of natural history, and made two extended research visits to the Amazon Basin and the Maly Archipelago. The resulting work explores the life, ideas, and surviving collections of Wallace, and the physical harships he endured during his travels." (11/5/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 9/17/09: S141, S266aa, S320, S574aa, S618b, and S635b. (10/21/09)
  
  
• A paperback edition of the 2008 Smith and Beccaloni-edited collection of writings on Wallace has been announced by the publisher, Oxford University Press. Plans are for a March 2010 release date, so here's your chance to advance-order the work, at a much reduced price! (10/6/09)
  
  
• I have just added twenty-three more new items (S142ab, S263a, S266aa, S266c, S334a, S345a, S370a, S376a, S439b, S443a, S446aa, S482a, S488b, S556a, S576aa, S581a, S594a, S618b, S622a, S635b, S646b, S648a, and S661a) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. Most of these are short notes, but the following are more noteworthy: S376a (on vaccination), S439b (on small village life), S482a (concerning footpaths), S581a (giving a great short summary of Wallace's ideas on social reform), S618b (on employee-based company buyouts) , and S635b (commenting on Andrew Carnegie's model of philanthropism). I hope to have all of the last mentioned transcribed and up online in the not too distant future. (10/5/09)
  
  
• In the most recent issue of Geoscientist a short piece appears describing the rediscovery of the house Wallace lived in on Rose Hill, Dorking. (9/25/09)
  
  
• According to information reported by Bristol University, Sir David Attenborough presented a very well received lecture on Wallace and the birds of paradise to some 850 people ("a record turnout") at that institution on 24 September. (9/25/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 4/17/09: S368ac, S385a, S510a, S712ac, and S712am. Items S735a, S739, and S748a have also been added in full-text to the "Wallace Interviews" feature. S368ac and S735a also appear in the bibliographic listings for the first time. (9/17/09)
  
  
• Roy Davies' book The Darwin Conspiracy can now be downloaded for free at: http://www.darwin-conspiracy.co.uk/ (8/27/09)
  
  
• My colleague George Beccaloni reports at his Wallace site that a series of stamps featuring Wallace have been issued by a small African country. He discusses the event at his Wallace news blog. Also reported there is the news that one of Wallace's places of residence (in Dorking) has finally been identified, and an account of some recent interesting goings-on in Brazil. (7/25/09)
  
  
• I have just added four more new items (S488a, S574aa, S635a, and S668aa) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature, plus citations for about thirty reprinted versions of items already in that list. I have also added the following items to the "Writings on Wallace" sections (new literature, old literature, and theses): Achenbach ( 2009), Amigoni (2007), Chakrabarti et al. (2008), Greenwood (2008), Guerrero (2008), Hodge (1902), Hugh-Jones (1981), Moreira (2008), Novak (2008), Parallax (1871, 1871), Proctor (1871), Rooper (1870). (7/5/09)
  
  
• I have been notified that on July 13, during the Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC), there will be the inauguration of a Wallace plaque (supplied by George Beccaloni) in Manaus. A reproduction of the Map of the Rio Negro will also be inaugurated in the INPA. Randal Keynes (Darwin´s great-great grandson) will be there; he is reportedly very satisfied to be paricipating in an event for commemorating Wallace. He will present a conference on Darwin in the Annual Meeting. Prof. Nelson Papavero will present a conference on Darwin, Wallace and natural selection, and Dr. Ildeu de Moreira will coordinate a round table on "Evolution Now" and also speak on "Wallace and the Amazon." (6/21/09)
  
  
• I have just added ten more new items (S200aa, S200ab, S200b, S385a, S411a, S510a, S707ah, S712ac, S712am, and S712aw) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. S200aa, S200ab and S200b are correspondence about the Bedford Canal Experiment that appeared in The English Mechanic; S200aa is probably the best accounting Wallace ever gave of his design of the experiment. S385a and S510a are lengthy letters to the Editor on the subject of poverty; S510a is about 2000 words in length and is virtually a full-blown essay. The rest of the items are Wallace letters that ended up in other people's books or articles. (5/3/09)
  
  
• I have been contacted by a Dutch team that is preparing a documentary series on a re-enactment of the voyage of the Beagle; it will consist of some forty episodes at least two of which will be on Wallace. For more information, see: http://beagle.vpro.omroep.nl/ (4/21/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 3/23/09: S201, S243, S442, S444, S449, and S711a. S243 is the full original version of "A Defence of Modern Spiritualism," published in 1874 (previously I had only made available the last two sections of this two-part essay, one of Wallace's longest). (4/17/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" and "Wallace Interviews" parts of the site since 2/15/09: S151, S167aa, S174, S285a, S308, S322a, S355, S368ab, S372, S525, S712ab, S712ad, S744a, and S744b. (3/23/09)
  
  
• manchestereventsguide.co.uk is carrying a story about comedian Bill Bailey's latest (upcoming) tour: it will be "based on the story of Alfred Russel Wallace." Apparently, Bailey is a fan of Wallace's, and there are even some rumors out that he may be producing a film on him. (2/25/09)
  
  
• I have just added twelve more new items (S167aa, S285a, S514a, S595aa, S623ab, S707af, S707ag, S708a, S711a, S712ab, S712ad, S744b) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" and "Wallace Interviews" features. Most of these are published letters; half of them appeared in print only after Wallace's death in late 1913. (2/21/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" and "Wallace Interviews" parts of the site since 2/6/09: S224, S226, S392, S422a, S425a, S667, S668, and S742. S422a and S425a are interesting to the extent they help clarify Wallace's position on reincarnation, and the general nature of evolution. (2/15/09)
  
  
• An interesting story was printed today in the Washington Post concerning the discovery of a cabinet filled with natural history specimens that may have been collected by Wallace. (2/8/09)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 11/28/08: S154, S158a, S188, S200a, S206, S214, S247, S252, S351, S354, S368b, S373, S377, S421a, S436, S439a, S500, S502, S531, S546, S554, S574, S581, and S707c. (2/6/09)
  
  
• Professor David Collard of the University of Bath has contributed an interesting commentary on Wallace's ideas on monetary reform, attached to essays S553 and S556 in the "Wallace Writings" section. (1/19/09)
  
  
• a correspondent has indicated that there will be "in Manaus a symposium on Wallace's works in the Amazon during the Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science (July 12-17, 2009)." (1/12/09)
  
  
• Jeff Neilson, a researcher at the University of Sydney, is in the midst of a project called "Higher considerations: An expedition to revisit key Wallace collecting sites in Indonesia and Malaysia to raise awareness about habitat loss and human development" which should produce a series of newspaper and magazine articles, and a documentary film. Jeff has created a blog at George Beccaloni's Wallace site, at:  http://wallacefund.info/jn_blog . (12/21/08)
  
  
• The Wallace Fund has opened up a merchandise page at the Cafe Press site, so now you can purchase Wallace tee-shirts, coffee mugs, and other items. It can be found here. (12/20/08)
  
  
• David Quammen was a guest on Kathleen Dunn's Wisconsin Public Radio interview program yesterday (Monday, December 15), and an audiofile of his nearly hour-long discussion of his new National Geographic article on Wallace and related subjects can be found here. (12/16/08)
  
  
• Click here for a woodcut portrait of Wallace that also appears in my new book Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace. (12/13/08)
  
  
• The Science and Medical Network has been kind enough to let George Beccaloni mount mp3 files of the recent Linnean Society conference on Wallace (on November 22) at his site (one is available now, the others in a few days). George's site should also be consulted for updates on other events in this and the next anniversary years, including the just-concluded conference on Wallace and Wallacea in Makassar. (12/13/08)
  
  
• I have just recently added the following works to the "Writings on Wallace" sections (new literature, old literature, and theses): Allen (1878), Beccaloni (2008, 2008), Benton (2008), Berry (2008), Caro et al. (2008), Caro et al. (2008), Claeys (2008), Cluysenaar (2008), Cranbrook (2008), Dick (2008), Fagan (2008), Fichman (2008), Frafjord (2003), Funk et al. (2007), N. Johnson (2008), Knapp (2008), Kunte (2008), Mallet (2008), Manna (2008), Michaux (2008), S. Moore (2007), Paul (2008), Quammen (2008), Raby (2008), C. Smith (2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2008), Smith & Beccaloni (2008), Stack (2008), Tinkler (2008), and Wolkenhauer (1882). I have also added eleven further items to the "Research Threads" feature. (11/29/08)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 9/21/08: S144, S168, S199, S203, S323, S349, S357, S446a, S497, S517, S577, S582, S597, S621, S623aa, S624, S624a, S625, S627a, S631, S633, S637, S647, S651, S676, S689, S703b, S707, S707ab, S707ae, and S712aa. Again, most of these are quite short items. This brings the total number of transcriptions of Wallace's published works that are available at this site to around 675 (plus links to over fifty more that are freely available elsewhere on the Web). (11/28/08)
  
  
• Both the conference described below (9/18/08) and the publication of the book Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace have now taken place. The Linnean Society conference was a notable success, with all expected speakers, and an enthusiastic audience, present. The book is now available for purchase in the U.K. and will appear on U.S. booksellers' shelves in January, so I understand. (11/28/08)
  
  
• According to Julia Yeong at the Singapore Office of Oxford University Press, a second event (in addition to the 22 November one centered on the 150th anniversary of natural selection and the release of my book Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace will be held at the Singapore Science Centre 10 am to 12 noon on 26 November. Co-organisers are the Singapore Science Centre (SSC), Oxford Fajar Sdn Bhd, National Parks Board (NParks), and the National University of Singapore (NUS), and will include talks by Dr. Chew Tuan Chiong and The Earl of Cranbrook. The audience is expected to consist of naturalists, scientists, historians, and members of the general public interested in natural history. (11/04/08) The event went off as scheduled; link here to view a story about the event posted on a local blog. (11/28/08)
  
  
• I have added links to the texts of three further of my writings on Wallace in the "Smith on Wallace" feature: "Alfred Russel Wallace, Journalist," "'Hussel,' 'Bussel' and 'Kussel,' Or, Using Google Books to Stalk the Elusive Alfred Russel Wallace," and "Further Additions to the Bibliography of Alfred Russel Wallace." (10/03/08)
  
  
• A correspondent has been gracious enough to let me display three photos of Wallace's grave that he took recently. (9/25/08)
  
  
• I have just added ten more new items (S258a, S429a, S479a, S570a, S652a, S703b, S707ad, S707ae, S707c, and S712aa) to the "Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace" feature. These are all minor items, but still have some interest. Included are published letters to W. T Stead, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, James Mark Baldwin, Upton Sinclair--and Parliament, on postal rates! (9/23/08)
  
  
• The following items have been added in full-text to the "Wallace Writings" part of the site since 5/8/08: S128, S284, S294a, S297, S333, S399, S408, S421b, S474, S490, S514, S516, S538, S541, S563, S565, S574a, S575, S588, S592, S592a, S594, S598a, S601, S603, S603a, S608, S620a, S638, S643, S648, S653, S658, S663, S665, S674a, S678, S692, S693, S694, S703, and S706. These are all quite short items, but a number of them are interesting, and in a variety of ways. In S294a, for example, he interjects a considerable amount of humor into comments on a paper delivered by the famous adventurer, Capt. Richard Burton, and in S598a he reveals his personal motto. (9/21/08)
  
  
• A special one-day conference sponsored by The Scientific and Medical Network, "Natural Selection and Beyond: Celebrating the Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace," is to be held on Saturday, 22 November 2008, at the Linnean Society in London. The Chair of the session will be Aubrey Manning; the five speakers are Peter Raby, George Beccaloni, Roy Davies, Charles H. Smith, and David Collard. "This day conference will mark the launch of an authoritative edited volume--Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace (Oxford University Press)--a rich collection of writings by more than twenty historians and scientists reviewing and reflecting on the work that made Wallace a famous man in his own time, and a figure of extraordinary influence and continuing interest today." For further information go to www.scimednet.org, call 01608 652 000, or email info@scimednet.org  (9/18/08)
  
  
• There will be a special "Alfred Russel Wallace Day" held in Usk, Wales, on Sunday, 21 September 2008 (next week!), featuring various talks and events. For more information, see the writeup at George Beccaloni's site. (9/14/08)
  
  
• I have received notice of the following, resident at George Beccaloni's site: "Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace & Wallacea in Makassar, Indonesia... a conference will be taking place in Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia from 10-13 December 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Wallace's independent discovery of natural selection in Indonesia. It is being hosted by the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI), The Wallacea Foundation, and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). The event will feature a number of invited speakers from around the world, and talks will range from historical accounts of Wallace's discoveries in Indonesia to lectures about the biodiversity of Wallacea. Artist Fred Edwards will be sending over from the UK a special exhibition of his stunning photographs of specimens collected by Wallace whilst in the Malay Archipelago." George also has a link to a downloadable poster about the event; questions regarding the conference can be addressed to:  wallacesymp@eijkman.go.id  (9/9/08)
  
  
• Additional events are being held worldwide to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the introduction of the concept of natural selection. I refer readers to George Beccaloni's excellent site for some updates. (8/5/08)
  
  
• Professor Ildeu C. Moreira, a director at the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, has provided me with some information regarding upcoming events in Brazil designed to celebrate the Wallace and Darwin anniversaries in 2008 and 2009. First, there will be a "Homage to Alfred Russel Wallace" session during the II Workshop for the Popularization of S & T in the Amazon (II Workshop de Difusão e Popularização de Ciência e Tecnologia na Amazônia) at Belém, 25-29 August 2008 ( see:  http://www.cultura.ufpa.br/labdemon/2wdpcta_homenagem.htm ). For the National S & T Week, 20-26 October 2008, evolution and diversity (Evolução & Diversidade) are to be the main themes ( see:  http://semanact.mct.gov.br ). A meeting on natural selection in the Amazon is also being planned, probably to take place in April 2009 in Manaus. Several of Wallace's texts, including his book on palms, are being translated into Portuguese for distribution. I have also heard that a thematic ISHPSSB off-year workshop on "Natural History and Evolution Just Before Darwin" will be held in the city of Itu, São Paulo State, Brazil, from 7 to 9 December 2008, with an emphasis on the period preceding the publication of Darwin's main works. Invited speakers who have confirmed their attendance include Richard Burkhardt, Thomas F. Glick and Nelson Papavero ( more information available at:  http://www.abfhib.org/Eventos/Before-Darwin-e.htm ). (7/20/08)
  
  
• For those wanting to use either Google or this site's onboard search engine to identify items here at this site, a word of warning should be issued. As it turns out, neither of these will actually exhaustively search through all the pages on the site--only something like 85% of the pages are actually reviewed. This is just a function of most search engines wanting to balance internal coverage with overall range of reach. If your needs are more in the direction of absolute comprehensiveness, I suggest you turn to the search engine AlltheWeb.com ( www.alltheweb.com ) . Using the advanced search screen there, put in your search terms in the "search for" box at the top, then further down under "include results from" add in:  people.wku.edu/charles.smith . This will limit your search to pages at my Wallace (and other) sites, finding, by last estimation, 95%+ of what's actually there. (7/20/08)
  
  
• I have found some time to add a number of quotations from the obituaries listed in my Obits feature, thus making an otherwise rather dry list a lot more interesting. (7/15/08)
  
  
• I have noticed some writings recently that try to argue that Wallace believed in intelligent design, as this term is now generally understood (basically, as Creationism). This is a gross oversimplification. See the new entry (the first on the list) I have added to the FAQ section. (7/9/08)
  
  
• Some of you undoubtedly know about this already, but a good way to find some recent "news" on the Web about Wallace is to do a WIKIO search. This link automatically produces a search on "Alfred Russel Wallace" that pulls up a range of stuff, some of it worth noting, and some not. (7/4/08)
  
  
• And practically as I speak below, George Beccaloni at the Natural History Museum writes: "It is now July 1st 2008 in the UK--the 150th anniversary of the first public announcement of the theory of natural selection:--perhaps the most powerful idea in the entire history of human thought! Karen James, who writes for the Beagle Project Blog ( http://thebeagleproject.blogspot.com/ ) asked me to write an essay for her blog to commemorate this momentous occasion. This I did as my contribution to the (rather paltry!) worldwide anniversary celebrations..." George's comments should be up on this blog within a matter of hours of my writing these words. (6/30/08)
  
  
• Various notices of the 150th anniversary of the presentation of the natural selection papers at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858 are being planned for tomorrow. I was asked myself to take part in a sizable spot on a National Public Radio morning program, but missed out when I was only a few minutes too late in responding to the request (David Quammen will end up doing the honors). Keep your eyes and ears open, as there are bound to be numerous mentions. (6/30/08)
  
  
• I have just added the following works to the "Writings on Wallace" section: Alter (2007), Anderson & Perrin (2007), Barnes (2008), Berlinski (2008), Brown (2007), Davies (2008), Elsdon-Baker (2008), Goh (2007), Hampton (2004), Johnson (2007), Leslie (2006), G. Moore (2007), Peterson (2008), Phillips (2008), Ritchie (2007), Sarkar (2007), Schmitt (2007), Westmoreland & Kiltie (2007), Williams (2008), and Zhang et al. (2007). (6/29/08)
  
  
• I have noticed recently some new mentions on the web of the old tale of how Wallace supposedly once aided an emperor moth (or sometimes called a butterfly) emerging from its cocoon, only to see the insect die as a result of its not profiting from its struggle. I can't recall ever seeing anything that indicates this story is more than apocryphal, but would appreciate hearing from anyone on this score. The story was told as early as 1915 in F. W. Boreham's (who told a lot of stories, I understand) book Mushrooms on the Moor, but I don't know whether Boreham actually invented it, heard it from someone else who heard it from who knows where, or maybe even got it from a source really leading back to Wallace. Does anyone know? (6/27/08)
  
  
• Over the past few weeks I have added links to the full text of over a hundred secondary sources, mostly nineteenth century works, to the "Wallace Obituaries" and "Writings on Wallace" parts of the site. A good portion of these have been through the aid of Google Books. (6/26/08)
  
  
• The National Botanic Garden of Wales is sponsoring "Alfred Russel Wallace Week 1-5 July 2008," during which period there will be several presentations of a new play entitled "You Should Ask Wallace," performed by Ioan Hefin and written and directed by Geinor Styles. July 1 also is the date for the opening there of an exhibition by Fred Langford Edward titled "The Forgotten Naturalist" featuring photographs, displays, and a poetry reading from Anne Cluysenaar's latest collection. For more information contact Bruce Langridge at 01558 667162 or by email at interpretation@gardenofwales.org.uk . (6/24/08)
  
  
• George Beccaloni at the Natural History Museum, London, reports "I have just learnt the sad news that the Linnean Society has decided to change the date it awards its Darwin-Wallace medal:--from 1st July 2008 (i.e. the 150th anniversary of the reading of the Darwin-Wallace papers first proposing natural selection) to (you guessed it!) 12th February 2009--Darwin's 200th birthday... The reason this is sad is because the medal was specifically created to mark the anniversary of the reading of the Darwin-Wallace papers. It is (or was!) the only award in the world to do so. Wallace was the first recipient of the medal (he was given the only gold example ever produced) on 1st July 1908, the 50th anniversary of the reading of the Darwin-Wallace papers. (read his acceptance speech here). The medal was next awarded on the 100th anniversary in 1958 and it was due to be awarded again this year. From 2009 onwards the award will be presented annually on Darwin's birthday. Given that the reading of the Darwin-Wallace paper is without doubt the most famous and historically important event which has taken place at the Society in its history, it seems extraordinary that they have taken this decision." Beyond George's consternation I can only add that I wonder whether the Linnean Society has considered that from now on the majority of people who stop to think about the date commemorated will wonder why a Darwin-Wallace medal is given out in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday... (6/7/08)
  
  
• I have just added links to an offsite location containing scans of the following Wallace publications: S167a, S168, S199, S201, S211, S214, S218, S224, S247, and S252; these may be accessed through either the "Wallace Writings" or "Wallace Bibliography" parts of the site here. (6/7/08)
  
  
• I have just added links to Google Books for the following Wallace publications: S151, S200a, S203, S290, S297, S340, S368b, S500, S502, S519a, S583, S585, S623, S623aa, S667, and S668; these may be accessed through either the "Wallace Writings" or "Wallace Bibliography" parts of the site here. I may get around to providing transcriptions of these eventually (and thus make their texts searchable through this site), but this helps for now. I have also done some re-organizing of existing text links, especially of Wallace books, and added a number of links to texts at offsite locations. (5/26/08)
  
  
• An important Wallace-related article is currently available to subscribers electronically (i.e., prior to its hardcopy release) at the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B site. The study, by University of Texas biologist Krushnamegh Kunte, is titled "Mimetic Butterflies Support Wallace's Model of Sexual Dimorphism," and he reports: "...I show that sexual dimorphism in Papilio is significantly correlated with both female-limited Batesian mimicry, where females are mimetic and males are non-mimetic, and with the deviation of female wing colour patterns from the ancestral patterns conserved in males. Thus, Wallace's model largely explains sexual dimorphism in Papilio. This finding, along with indirect support from recent studies on birds and lizards, suggests that Wallace's model may be more widely useful in explaining sexual dimorphism..." (from the author's abstract). (5/12/08) The work appeared in print in the 22 July 2008 issue of the journal, volume 275 number 1643, pages 1617-1624. (11/29/08)
  
  
• 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)
  
  
• 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 158 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, 167aa, 168a, 179aa, 179a, 182a, 184a, 200a, 208a, 246a, 248a, 248b, 258a, 266a, 266b, 285a, 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, 429a, 439a, 446a, 447a, 459a, 479a, 486a, 502a, 504a, 507a, 513a, 514a, 518a, 519a, 520a, 527a, 531a, 547a, 554a, 555a, 557a, 562a, 570a, 574a, 576a, 576b, 580a, 591a, 592a, 595a, 595aa, 595b, 595c, 595d, 597a, 598a, 603a, 618a, 619b, 620a, 623a, 623aa, 623ab, 624a, 627a, 628a, 628aa, 628b, 643a, 646a, 650a, 652a, 654a, 668a, 674a, 676a, 680a, 688a, 690a, 690ab, 692a, 692b, 700a, 702a, 703a, 703b, 707a, 707aa, 707ab, 707ac, 707ad, 707ae, 707af, 707ag, 707b, 707c, 708a, 711a, 712a, 712aa, 712ab, 712ad, 734a, 744a, 744b, and 748a. (2/21/09)
  
  
• 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://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/S100.htm   before, it is now:   http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/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.