The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are here indigenous. Situated upon the equator, and bathed with the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown. If we look at a globe or a map of the eastern hemisphere we shall percieve between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands, forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of them. Wallace begins The Malay Archipelago with this evocative description of the region: The dedication to Charles Darwin from the frontispiece of The Malay Archipelago A German translation came out in 1869 and a Dutch translation in 1870 and it is believed that the book has never been out of print. A second edition of 750 copies came out in October that year and edition after edition followed. The Malay Archipelago was published in London on 9 March 1869 in two volumes of 1500 copies and it quickly sold out. Altogether he collected an astonishing 125,660 specimens of natural history, mainly beetles, butterflies and birds from across the archipelago. The main purpose of Wallace’s travels, as he states in the preface to his book, was to obtain natural history specimens for his private collection and to sell duplicates to museums and amateur naturalists through his agent in London. Based largely on four field journals which Wallace kept during the eight years he spent there between 18, it ranks as the greatest travel book on the region and for its analysis of the geographic distribution of animals, it is one of the most important natural history books of the nineteenth century. The Malay Archipelago is undoubtedly the classic work on the flora, fauna and peoples of the area which is now called Malaysia and Indonesia. This wonderful book is an account of the eight years he spent in British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies collecting natural history specimens, including his discovery of the biogeographic boundary between Asia and Australia which came to be called ‘The Wallace Line’, his descriptions of the region between Asia and Australia which came to be known as ‘Wallacea’, and the recognition from his studies of the fauna that Australia had collided with Asia. This week we celebrate the 150 year anniversary of the publication of Alfred Russel Wallace’s book, The Malay Archipelago.
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