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British naturalist, explorer, and biologist (1823–1913) best known for proposing a theory of natural selection which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own. Two first editions by Alfred Russel Wallace: The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vols. I and II, published in London by Macmillan in 1876, complete with its color-printed maps and engraved plates of animals; and Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras, published in London by Macmillan and Co. in 1880, complete with its map plates. The three volumes are custom-bound in contemporary three-quarter blue calf with marbled boards, top edges gilt with compartmented decorative spines. In overall very good condition, with edgewear, rubbing to boards and spines, and some foxing to textblocks.
With the publication of The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Alfred Russel Wallace 'established evolutionary zoogeography on its modern foundation…Wallace’s evolutionary approach to zoogeography provided a rock-solid factual basis for evolutionary biology' (Dictionary of Scientific Biography). In its sequel, Island Life, he extends studies on the influence of the glacial epochs on organismal distribution patterns and the characteristics of island biogeography.
