Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazon: Footsteps in the Forest

by Sandra Knapp

A fascinating account of naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's 1848 expedition to the Amazon

Alfred Russel Wallace spent almost two years traveling up the Rio Negro, a region few Europeans had explored, collecting natural history specimens. A fire onboard the ship during the return journey to England destroyed all of his collections, but among the possessions rescued was a collection of sketches of fish, later presented to the Natural History Museum. This book describes the naturalist in the making, the tragic loss of Wallace's collections, and how this affected his future. His research ultimately led him (in parallel with Darwin) to one of the biggest and most controversial ideas of the 19th century—evolution by natural selection—and his understanding of this process certainly began in the Amazon. Wallace's Amazonian adventure is recounted using his own words where possible, and illustrated throughout with his delicate pencil drawings. The story is interwoven with the author's current experience of tropical field work and is told in a lively, informal style.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature

184 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Nostalgia Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book highlighting Wallace's travels through the Amazon. Knapp presents hefty snippets from Wallace's journals and letters, tying the narrative together with her own observations and background, without feeling intrusive or overbearing. It was a great balance between primary source and narrative, and gave a great overview of Wallace's trip. Highly recommended for anyone who's interested in naturalists and their adventures.

[Stella · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely little book on Alfred Russel Wallace and his adventures in the Amazon before his more well-known travels to Malaysia. It isn't a terribly long read and is nicely illustrated throughout with his few surviving sketches of fish and palm trees. An explorer I am not, but I enjoyed traveling along with him as a reader.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

How exciting! I have another name to add to my short but passionately-defended list of personal heroes, (Francis Younghusband, Roy Chapman Andrews, Peter Fleming, and old TR himself). How did I not already know Alfred Russel Wallace?? This is the guy whose letter to Darwin outlining his own thoughts on the origin of species finally pushed Darwin out of his chair and into publishing his own work, (largely so that he could scoop Wallace before he returned to England); this is the guy who ‘discovered’ the Wallace Line, which basically explains why Borneo has orangutans and Lombok has dragons, and also began to explain continental drift and plate tectonics (which then explains EVERYTHING). This is the guy who spent over a dozen self-funded years traipsing around the jungles of Brazil and the Malay Archipelago, while the independently-wealthy Darwin only spend five years sailing with the Beagle, and then the next 22 thinking about what he’d seen and dithering over whether to publish or not, (obviously – or maybe not so obviously, but at least for me – the more one learns about both Wallace and Darwin, the more it becomes difficult to remain a fan of both Wallace AND Darwin).

The BBC recently ran a two-part show on Wallace, hosted by (of all things) a British comedian, Bill Bailey – but it was a surprisingly well-done introduction and got me hooked straightaway, in large part because so much of it happened in my “backdoor” of Borneo. I determined to find out more about him (Wallace, not Bailey), but decided to do so chronologically, and therefore began with Sandra Knapp’s slim but excellent Footsteps in the Forest, which covers his original and ultimately disastrous four years in the Amazon – (no real spoiler here, but on his return to England, Wallace’s ship caught fire and sank, taking all his collections and most of his notes with it; his only surviving sketches being the launching pad for Knapp’s book) – and prior to his more famous and rewarding work in Indonesia.

Knapp is a good writer, but wherever possible stays out of Wallace’s way and lets him speak for himself – a wise decision. Like so many of his explorer/scientist contemporaries, Wallace was an excellent writer, and his sharp observation skills combined with his typically British self-effacement make for some fascinating but delightfully low-key commentary.

This being Singapore, the local library system – pretty good to begin with – has an excellent selection of Wallace-related books, and so I’ll be reading a lot more on him before I leave this summer. Let the (armchair) adventure begin!

[KimK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this fascinating, accessible and very short accounting of Alfred Russel Wallace’s explorations and adventures in the Amazon Basin. It draws heavily on his own words, augmented by perhaps too occasional observations from the experiences of its author, herself a botanist with the Natural History Museum of London. Even if the topic isn’t for you, the reproductions of Wallace’s original sketches of palms and fish are worth finding a copy to borrow.

[Adriana Rangel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short book highlighting Wallace’s time in the Amazon.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alas what it might have been, how history might have turned out if the result of Wallace's 4 years collecting in the Amazon basin had not all gone up in flames in the middle of the Atlantic! For one, this book would have been a lot thicker, comparable to his acclaimed Malay Archipelago narrative. Instead, it is based on the few letters he wrote home, and the autobiographical works later in his life. Despite the paucity of material and notes that survived, the tale of his expedition to South America still manages to fill one with wonder and excitement at the shocking explosion of life experienced by one setting foot in the tropics for the first time. Wallace's many sketches of fish and palm trees are marvelously detailed and particularly impressive.

The author lauds Wallace for having the fortitude to shrug off this massive personal calamity and continue collecting meticulously and tirelessly subsequently in the Far East, always looking to the present and never dwelling on the past and what could have been. I for one also believe that had it not been for his tragic loss Wallace might not even have felt the push to carry on his work in Asia, which would imply he might not have independently developed the idea of evolution through natural selection. After all, the myriad islands of the Sunda region proved to be fertile ground for the diversification of species, arguably more so than the Neotropics.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book describes Alfred Russel Wallace's expedition to the Amazon using excerpts from his writings accompanied by copies of his drawings, and the lessons that he learned there which influenced his later expedition to the Malayan peninsula and his work on the theory of evolution.