Victorian-era scientist Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, is enjoying a renaissance of sorts 200 years after his birth and Yavapai College Biology Professor Dr. Jeb Bevers may be partly to blame.

Bevers has become something of a noted expert on Wallace – an evolutionary researcher, explorer and writer -- and is increasingly sought-after to share his knowledge and insights in the United States and abroad. Multiple recent speaking engagements, including for the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science this month and for a bicentennial Wallace celebration at Oxford University Museum of Natural History in January, stem from Bevers’ own fascination with and research into Wallace’s remarkable life -- his transition from surveyor to self-taught scientist, his world travels, his discoveries, and his prolific writings.

“I’ve always been interested in the history of science,” said Bevers, who was first introduced to Wallace as an undergraduate biology student at Oregon State University. “I became interested in the history of the science I went into – biology -- and the history of evolutionary thought. I credit my (OSU) professors for stimulating my curiosity.”

Bevers’ interest in Wallace was reignited while studying fossils on sabbatical in England. There he came across historic science texts from Wallace’s personal library that had been annotated. This was news to Linnean Society of Natural History Library staff where Bevers ultimately discovered more than 300 books Wallace once owned and that his estate ultimately donated to the institution. He found another 30 annotated Wallace texts at the University of Edinburgh.

“No one had noticed the annotations and I’m the only person as far as I know to look at everything the Linnean Society Library had that were originally Wallace’s books,” said Bevers, who so far has closely examined 30 of the annotated books, taken thousands of photographs and plans to peruse about 60 more when he returns to England this summer to address the Linnean Society -- the longest-running natural history society in the world and that counted Wallace as a member.

Bevers, who is in his 20th year of teaching at YC, described finding the annotations in Wallace’s former books as “like discovering a treasure trove of missing letters.”

One of the annotated books Bevers discovered that is now in the Linnean Society’s possession: “California Flora.” Wallace purchased the book while visiting the United States in 1887. Notes throughout include simple observation like “big trees,” referring to redwoods, and his exact location when he spotted animals and plants the book calls out. In other books, Wallace wrote critiques like “utter rubbish from start to finish.” That’s because, Bevers asserted, “He knew better than what he was reading. He had a photographic memory for species.”

Wallace is credited with linking evolution to species development at about the same time as Darwin, even sharing “a concept extremely parallel to natural selection” with him, Bevers said, adding, “Wallace's independent paper influenced Darwin to hurry up and write a book, which developed into the influential “Origin of Species." That fact and many others the YC professor has learned about Wallace in eight years of in-depth research has intensified his interest.

“The more I read, the more fascinated I am,” Bevers said. “Wallace not only studied animals and plants, he lived with indigenous people… He adapted really well with people and that expanded his mind from the narrow viewpoint of the time. He started to realize in many cases, hands down, all the good attributes of the people he worked with.”

Along with sharing what he knows about Wallace with the rest of the world through academic papers, presentations and possibly a future book, Bevers aims to deepen his and the world’s knowledge and understanding of a man whose life and work were astounding, even if obscured by timing, chance and the attention paid Darwin. “I’m not saying he was brilliant in every way. He made errors. But he had such enthusiasm and interest in a broad spectrum of human endeavors… he was a forerunner in a lot of ways.”

A video recording of a Wallace presentation Bevers gave at the Boyd Tenney Library at the Prescott Campus is available here: View video

Bevers earned his master’s degree in biology from Portland State University and his doctorate in biology from New Mexico State University.

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