Milestones of Science Books

DARWIN, Charles.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.

London: John Murray, 1868.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003580

Two volumes. 8vo (221 x 142 mm). viii, 411 [1]; viii, 486 pp. With 32 pp. of publisher's catalogue dated April 1867 in vol. I and [2] pp. ads dated February 1868 in vol. II; 1 erratum on 2 lines in vol. I as called for. Original publishers dark-green cloth with gilt-lettered and decorated spines including two-line imprint to each tail, dark-blue-coated endpapers and binder's ticket (Edmonds & Remnants) to the rear paste-down of vol. I (bindings sound, minor rubbing to cloth and extremities, corners with some minor wear and very little bumping, about 1 inch long split of cloth at lower joint). All pages uncut. Bright and clean throughout, p. viii with small hole at inner blank margin from unsticking (well away from text area). Provenance: John Flower (armorial bookplate to each front pastedown). A very good+ set. ----

FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE. Includes the first appearance of the phrase "survival of the fittest" in any of Darwin's works (p. 6 of 1st volume). The present text provides a "full statement of the facts on which the theories of the 'Origin' were based" (ODNB). A large part of the book contains details and discussion about artificial selection, and it also contains Darwin's provisional hypothesis of pangenesis - one which he thought was new but was in fact not. It is his longest, most substantial work. "This represents the only section of Darwin's big book on the origin of species which was printed in his lifetime and corresponds to its first two intended chapters" (Freeman).
"About half of the eight years that elapsed between its commencement and completion were spent on it. The book did not escape adverse criticism: it was said, for instance, that the public had been patiently waiting for Mr. Darwin's pièces justicatives, and that after eight years of expectation all they got was a mass of detail about pigeons, rabbits and silkworms. But the true critics welcomed it as an expansion with unrivalled wealth of illustration of a section of the Origin" (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters, F. Darwin, editor, NY, 1958, p. 281).
References: Norman 597; Freeman 878; Garrison-Morton 224.1 - Visit our website to see more images!

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