The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication

Darwin, Charles

Edité par John Murray, London, 1868

First edition, first issue. Demy octavo (8 11/16" x 5 9/16", 220mm x 142mm). [Full collation available.] Bound in the publisher's green blocked cloth. Spines gilt. Midnight-blue-coated end-papers. Both volumes cocked, and a little bowed and shaken. Foxing to the preliminaries of each volume. Binder's ticket (Edmonds & Remnants, London) to the rear paste-down of vol. I and seller's ticket (Sackett & Edmonds) to the front paste-down of vol. II. With some early pencil marginalia (mostly checks and side-lining, but with some comments or corrections towards the end of vol. II), and a very little pencil underlining. A very good set, with bright gilt and clean text-blocks. Although the Descent and the Origin are the works for which Darwin (1809-1882) is best-known, his "lesser" works are opportunities to the process by which he arrived at his grander theories. Just as Einstein's theory of special relativity is a preliminary step to the theory of general relativity, so too is Darwin's theory of natural selection preceded by a theory of artificial selection, i.e., breeding. The large abstract notion of natural selection, which had been laid out in the 1859 On the Origin of Species, could be clarified by describing the practice of selective breeding, whose history in Britain had long been described in manuals of husbandry. Variation is Darwin's longest work, and was proportionally unpopular. In it he lays out his theory of pangenesis as a mechanism of heredity, whereby each part of the body contributes particles -- "gemmules" -- to the gonads, allowing a body's changes over time to contribute traits to offspring. This was effectively disproven by Mendelian "particulate" (i.e., genetic) heredity. The Variation also contains the first appearance in Darwin's writing of the (borrowed) phrase "survival of the fittest." The first edition had two issues, with a great many changes in typesetting. The distinguishing points of the first issue, as here, are: vol. I, p. vi, 5 lines of errata; vol. II, p. viii, seven lines of errata; and a one-line imprint gilt to the tail of each spine. Freeman 877.1, 2. N° de réf. du vendeur 6JLR0175

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : The Variation of Animals and Plants under ...
Éditeur : John Murray, London
Date d'édition : 1868
Reliure : Hardcover
Etat : Very good
Edition : First.