DARWIN, Charles, & Alfred Russel Wallace.

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The Darwin-Wallace Celebration held on Thursday, 1st July, 1908, by the Linnean Society of London. First and only edition of this commemorative volume, in the strikingly gilt-stamped original cloth. It celebrates the proposal of the theory of evolution, described in the words of the Linnean Society's then president, Dukinfield Henry Scott, as "without doubt the greatest event in the history of our Society since its foundation" (p. 1). The grand event marked the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of Darwin and Wallace's papers on natural selection, first read to the society in 1858 by Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker. Both papers are here reprinted in full alongside the event programme, the list of attendees of the celebratory dinner, the general meeting minutes, and summaries of the special lantern demonstrations delivered during the evening. Of particular interest is a detailed account of the objects exhibited in the library, which comprised natural history specimens illustrating variation across species. The event took place at the Institution of Civil Engineers because the Society's rooms in Burlington House were not large enough to hold the number of scientists in attendance. Attendees also included members of the Darwin family, representatives of scientific societies, and several foreign ministers. Wallace was the first recipient of the Darwin-Wallace medal; six similarly influential evolutionary biologists - including Hooker, Galton, and Haeckel - received silver v

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