The Malay Archipelago

This is his vivid, exhilarating and heroic account of his travels across the entire Malay world, from Singapore to the western edges of New Guinea.

Of all the Victorian travelogues, this book offers an account of some eight years' travel across the entire Malay world - from Singapore to the western edges of New Guinea - and as the record of a great mind.Of all the extraordinary Victorian travelogues, The Malay Archipelago has a fair claim to be the greatest - both as a beautiful, alarming, vivid and gripping account of some eight years' travel across the entire Malay world - from Singapore to the western edges of New Guinea - and as the record of a great mind. As Wallace, often under conditions of terrible hardship and sickness, battles through jungles, lives with headhunters, and collects beetles, butterflies and birds-of-paradise, he makes discoveries about the workings of biology that have shaped our view of the world ever since.