My Life
A Record of Events and Opinions

This autobiography of eminent Victorian scientist, explorer and social activist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was published in 1905.

Alfred Russel Wallace (Author)

9781108029582, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 June 2011

504 pages, 29 b/w illus. 2 maps
21.6 x 14 x 2.8 cm, 0.64 kg

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer and biologist, best remembered as the co-discoverer, with Darwin, of natural selection. His extensive fieldwork and advocacy of the theory of evolution led to him being considered one of the nineteenth century's foremost biologists. He was later moved by a variety of personal experiences to examine the concept of spirituality, but his exploration into the potential for compatibility between spiritualism and natural selection alienated him from the scientific community. He was also a social activist, highly critical of unjust social and economic systems in nineteenth-century Britain, and one of the first prominent scientists to express concern over the environmental impact of human activity. This autobiography was first published in 1905. Volume 1 covers his childhood, his early social activism, and his expeditions to the Amazon and the Malay archipelago, which established his reputation.

Preface
1. My relatives and ancestors
2. Usk: my earliest memories
3. Hertford: the home of my boyhood
4. Hertford: my school life
5. Hertford: my home life
6. London workers, secularists and Owenites
7. Bedfordshire: surveying
8. Bedfordshire: Turvey
9. Bedfordshire: Silsoe and Leighton Buzzard
10. Kington and Radnorshire
11. Brecknockshire
12. Shropshire and Jack Mytton
13. Glamorganshire: Neath
14. First literary efforts
15. Remarks on my character at twenty-one
16. London and Leicester
17. Residence at Neath
18. The journey to the Amazon
19. 'In memoriam'
20. In London, and voyage to Singapore
21. The Malay archipelago – Singapore, Malacca, Borneo
22. Celebres, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Timor, Java, and Sumatra
23. Life in London, 1862–1871 – scientific and literary work
24. Home life – my friends and acquaintances – Sir Charles Lyell.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]