Episode 5: The Sleeper Hoax Booklet

For his 90th birthday in February 1913, renowned British naturalist and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace received a mysterious package containing a small booklet called Shall We Have Common Sense. This booklet, dated 1849, contained essays on evolution through natural selection and germ theory. If this booklet is authentic, it precedes Darwin and Wallace’s publications on evolution by a decade, and Louis Pasteur’s writings on germ theory by nearly two decades.

Is it a genuine remarkable discovery?  Is it an elaborate and confusing hoax? Join in on the investigation as we explore some intriguing characters like the eccentric atheist George Washington Sleeper, British naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Edward B. Poulton, and a mysterious little booklet that could change the history of evolutionary theory.

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If you have additional information you'd like to share about the typeface for this booklet, George Sleeper, or The Linnean Society, please contact me!

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