My Life a Record of Events and Opinions (Hardcover)

1908. The autobiography of Wallace, an English naturalist, evolutionist, geographer, anthropologist, and social critic and theorist, who spent many years in the Malay Archipelago. On the basis of his observations of its flora and fauna he arrived at the theory of natural selection independent of Darwin; learning of their co-discovery led them to publish it in a joint paper. Early on he came into contact with supporters of the utopian socialist Robert Owen. In My Life he recollects that he even once heard Owen himself speak; from that point on he would describe himself in disciple terms. Two of his other essays from this early period are discussed in My Life. In the decade that followed, Wallace published over 150 works, including essays, letters, reviews, book notices, and monographs. His scientific writings would focus on natural selection, geographical distribution, and glaciology, and include three classic books: The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Tropical Nature, and Other Essays, and Island Life. Darwinism, while perhaps the highpoint of his later scientific work, was nevertheless only a very small part of it. Although social studies were absorbing more and more of his attention throughout the 1880s and 1890s, he was still left with plenty of time to crank out a steady stream of writings on more scientific subjects. During the 1890s alone he again published a total of over 150 works, dozens of these dealing with evolutionary, biogeographic, and physical geography subjects. In his later years he became a Spiritualist. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.