8vo in 12s, (200 x 123 mm), pp ix 502; 32 (publisher’s advertisements, dated June 1859), with a folding diagram facing p 117; a fine, fresh copy in the original publisher’s blindstamped green cloth (binding variant b), spine lettered and decorated in gilt, binder’s ticket of Edmonds & Remnants on rear paste-down, signature on half-title, preserved in a morocco-backed box. £85,000
First edition of the single most important biological book ever published. ‘The publication of the Origin of species ushered in a new era in our thinking about the nature of man. The intellectual revolution it caused and the impact it had on man’s concept of himself and the world were greater than those caused by the works of Copernicus, Newton, and the great physicists of more recent times … Every modern discussion of man’s future, the population explosion, the struggle for existence, the purpose of man and the universe, and man’s place in nature rests on Darwin’ (Ernst Mayr).
Freeman 373; Dibner 199; Horblit 23b; Garrison and Morton 220; Grolier Medicine 70b; Norman 593; PMM 344b
GBP 85000.00
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