Malay Archipelago
"The Malay Archipelago" influenced many works starting with those of Wallace's contemporaries. The novelist Joseph Conrad used it as source material for some of his novels, including "Almayer's Folly", "An Outcast of the Islands", and "The Rescue". Commentators have suggested it had a particularly profound influence on "Lord Jim", crediting it with among other things the inspiration for the character Stein the entomologist. Conrad's assistant Richard Curle wrote that "The Malay Archipelago" was Conrad's favourite bedside book; Conrad refers directly to what he calls Alfred Wallace's famous book on the Malay Archipelago in The Secret Agent. In his short story, "Neil MacAdam", W. Somerset Maugham has the title character read "The Malay Archipelago" while travelling to Borneo, and its influence can be felt in the story's description of that island.