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'I slept very comfortably with half a dozen smoke-dried human skulls suspended over my head'
The great Victorian scientist's heroic adventures across South-East Asia, from Singapore to the wilds of New Guinea, encountering head-hunters, jungles, birds of paradise and new discoveries that would change the world.
Part of a new series of distinctive, unforgettable Penguin Classics in a beautiful new design and pocket-sized format, with coloured jackets echoing Penguin's original covers.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was one of the most important and likeable British scientists of the 19th century. A field researcher of genius, he spent many years in Brazil and southeast Asia, identifying many new species and, independently of Darwin, before developing – in parallel to Darwin – the theory of evolution through natural selection. He effectively created the whole field of 'bio-geography', with the great split between Eurasian and Australasian flora and fauna, which runs through the Malay archipelago, now named the Wallace Line. His research on warning colouration and speciation continues to shape modern research. During his travels in southeast Asia he collected an estimated quarter of a million specimens.
