biographylit

Wallace’s Malay Archipelago is a classic account of the travels of a Victorian naturalist through island Southeast Asia. It has been loved by readers ever since its publication in 1869. Despite numerous modern reprints with appreciative introductions, this is the first – and long overdue – annotated edition in English. This edition explains, updates and corrects the original text with an historical introduction and hundreds of explanatory notes. Wallace left hundreds of people, places, publications and species unidentified. He referred to most species only with the scientific name current at the time. Whenever available, the common names for species have been provided, and scientific names updated. The content of the book has never been thoroughly analysed and compared against other contemporary sources. It turns out that the book contains many errors. This includes not just incorrect dates and place names but some of the most remarkable anecdotes; for example, the dramatic claim that tigers “kill on an average a Chinaman every day” in Singapore or that a Dutch Governor General committed suicide by leaping from a waterfall on Celebes.
By correcting the text of the Malay Archipelago against Wallace’s letters and notebooks and other contemporary sources and by enriching it with modern identifications this edition reveals Wallace’s work as never before.

Sir David Attenborough is Britain’s best-known natural history film-maker. His career as a naturalist and broadcaster has spanned nearly six decades, and in this volume of memoirs Sir David tells stories of the people and animals he has met and the places he has visited. A lot has changed since his first television documentary, and in this updated edition of Life on Air Sir David tells us of his experiences of filming in the 21st century. Also available in paperback [stock id 35782].

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), colleague of Charles Darwin, co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection, “father” of the field of evolutionary biogeography, vocal socialist and spiritualist, land reform theorist, intense social critic, etc., etc., was one of the most captivating figures of his time. Wallace began his professional career through two great natural history collecting expeditions, one to the Amazon and the other to the Australasian Archipelago; so successful were these that many observers would place him as the front-ranking field naturalist of all time. after he returned to England in 1862, however, his professional emphasis shifted toward writing. His published works included more than twenty books and close to a thousand other items: technical scientific papers, essays, commentaries, book reviews, and, not least, some three hundred letters to the Editor. It is in the last that his temperament comes out most strongly, and it is our privilege in the present work to reproduce more than two hundred of these, extending to all of his many intellectual passions. The philosopher Charles Peirce once wrote of Wallace that he “never wrote a dull line in his life, and couldn’t if he tried”, and the reader here can expect to be entertained accordingly.

The explorers of Australia tell an epic story of courage and suffering, of dispossession and conquest, of a moving frontier between European invaders and the Aboriginal custodians of the continent. This compelling anthology documents almost four centuries of exploration and takes us into a world of danger, compassion and humour.  Many of the stories beggar belief.  Maori chief Te Pahi saves the lives of condemned thieves in Sydney in 1805.  Hume and Hovell argue over their frying pan.  John Ainsworth Horrocks is shot by his camel.  Brilliantly edited and introduced by Tim Flannery, The Explorers draws on the most remarkable body of non-fiction writing ever produced in Australia.

On the great Pacific discovery expeditions of the eighteenth century, naturalists were commonly found aboard ships sailing forth from European ports. Lured by intoxicating opportunities to discover exotic and perhaps lucrative flora and fauna unknown at home, these men set out eagerly to collect and catalogue, study and document an uncharted natural world. This enthralling book is the first to describe the adventures and misadventures, discoveries and dangers of this devoted and sometimes eccentric band of explorer-scholars. Their individual experiences are uniquely their own, but together their stories offer a new perspective on the extraordinary era of Pacific exploration and the achievements of an audacious generation of naturalists. Historian Glyn Williams illuminates the naturalist’s lot aboard ship, where danger alternated with boredom and quarrels with the ship’s commander were the norm. Nor did the naturalists’ difficulties end upon returning home, where gaining recognition for years of work often proved elusive.
Peopled with wonderful characters and major figures of Enlightenment science – among them Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Joseph Banks, John Reinhold Forster, Captain Cook and Charles Darwin – this book is a gripping account of a small group of scientific travellers whose voyages of discovery were to change perceptions of the natural world.