Australia's ABC Radio broadcast a 22 minute interview with George Beccaloni on the June 18 2017 - the 159th anniversary of the arrival of Wallace's essay on natural selection at Charles Darwin's house in Kent, England. The packet containing the essay plus a covering letter, was posted from the small 'Spice Island' of Ternate in Indonesia in March or possibly April of 1858, arriving at Darwin’s house in Downe on 18 June 1858. When Darwin read the article he was understandably horrified and immediately scribbled an anguished letter to his friend the geologist Charles Lyell asking for advice on what he should do. "I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. [manuscript] sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! ... So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed." he groaned… To find out what happened next listen to the interview here: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/darwin/programs/nightlife/darwin-and-wallace/8630628
Also see the link to George's article "Alfred Russel Wallace and natural selection: the real story" on this page: http://wallacefund.info/content/1858-darwin-wallace-paper You can also read the text of the Darwin-Wallace paper there, plus download a pdf of Wallace's own annotated copy of the published essay - sent to him in the Malay Archipelago (probably) by Darwin.
