Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace anthology edited by Andrew Berry, Verso, £19/$27, ISBN 1859846521 Reviewed by Roy Herbert
THE fates seem to have had it in for Alfred Russel Wallace. His most stupendous piece of bad luck was to have sent his ideas on evolution to Charles Darwin – to ask the opinion of the very man who had been working along the same lines for years. Alarmed that he might be pre-empted, Darwin published his long-considered theories immediately and made Wallace appear a poor second, panting along in his wake.
Moreover, the entire record of Wallace’s work as a…
