Darwin & Wallace at the Linnean Society: Mark’s article for The Book Collector

The outlines of the theory of evolution were first enunciated in papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace read at the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858 and published the following month in the Society’s Journal, covering ‘eighteen pages which … were among the most pregnant ever printed, and deserve to rank with those of Isaac Newton, since the provide the realm of living beings the first general principle capable of application”*

* Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace,°Evolution°by°Natural°Selection°with°a° Foreword°by°Sir°Gavin de Beer (Cambridge, 1958), p. 1.

Thus begins the article just published by Type & Forme’s Mark James in The Book Collector, titled ‘Two indefatigable naturalists’: The Darwin-Wallace-Collection of the Linnean Society. Mark has worked on Darwin, on and off, for some 25 years, and here explores the seminal collections connected with Darwin, Wallace, and the history of the theory of evolution.

The entire article is available in the Spring 2020 issue of The Book Collector.
We hope you will enjoy reading it!