The Heretic in Darwin鈥檚 Court: The life of Alfred Russel Wallace by Ross A. Slotten, Columbia University Press, $39.50, ISBN 0231130104 Reviewed by Douglas Palmer
HE may have been only 14 years younger than Charles Darwin, but differences in class, wealth and education placed Alfred Russel Wallace much further apart within the spectrum of Victorian scientists. Darwin emerged from late 18th-century Whig gentry while Wallace (1823-1913) was a new Victorian man, albeit middle-class, who had to make his own way and survived into the modern era.
Ross Slotten鈥檚 meticulously researched biography, The Heretic in Darwin鈥檚 Court, explores Wallace鈥檚 scientifically 鈥渉eretical鈥� interests in a bunch of late Victorian 鈥渋sms鈥�, that range from socialism to spiritualism and extraterrestrial life.
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Slotten claims that Wallace was 鈥渢he quintessential outsider both by birth and choice鈥� and therefore reckons that he was 鈥減erfectly positioned to promote a revolution鈥�. Slotten鈥檚 stated mission is to counteract the image 鈥淒arwinian spin doctors have created at the expense of another great scientific thinker of the Victorian age鈥�.