Publisher's Synopsis
This is a fascinating account of British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallaceâ_Ts 1848 expedition to the Amazon. Wallace spent almost two years travelling up the Rio Negro, a region few Europeans had explored, collecting natural history specimens. A fire on-board ship during the return journey to England destroyed all of his collections, but among the possessions rescued was a collection of sketches of fish, later presented to the Natural History Museum. This book describes the naturalist in the making, the tragic loss of Wallaceâ_Ts collections and how this affected his future. His research ultimately led him (in parallel with Darwin) to one of the biggest and most controversial ideas of the nineteenth century - evolution by natural selection - and his understanding of this process certainly began in the Amazon.
Wallaceâ_Ts Amazonian adventure is recounted using his own words where possible, and illustrated throughout with his delicate pencil drawings. The story is interwoven with the authorâ_Ts current experience of tropical field work and is relayed in a lively, informal style.
