3 vols in 4, 8vo (227 x 141 mm), with 8 engraved folding maps and charts, loose in pockets on inner front boards, 48 plates and charts, and 6 text illustrations; some occasional foxing to plates as usual, a very good copy, in period-style calf, spines gilt. £70,000
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Darwin to John Phillips, geologist (see provenance below), of the Beagle voyage. There are very few presentation copies of this work recorded. The inscription is in the volume by Darwin, The Journal of researches, and is in Darwin's hand (later works were usually inscribed by the publishers' clerks, and not by Darwin himself). This contains the first edition of Darwin's Journal of researches as it became known, his first formal publication and a classic of natural history travel narrative. It was perhaps the most important scientific voyage ever undertaken, for it gave impetus and direction to all of Darwin's later research. 'The five years of the voyage were the most important event in Darwin's intellectual life and in the history of biological science. Darwin sailed with no formal scientific training. He returned a hard-headed man of science, knowing the importance of evidence, almost convinced that species had not always been as they were since the creation but had undergone change. He also developed doubts of the value of the Scriptures as a trustworthy guide to the history of the earth and of man, with the result that he gradually became an agnostic. The experiences of his five years in the Beagle, how he dealt with them, and what they led to, built up into a process of epoch-making importance in the history of thought' (Gavin de Beer in DSB).
Provenance: John Phillips (1800-1874), was a geologist, Fellow of the Royal Society, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum from 1854 to 1870, and keeper of the University Museum in Oxford from 1857 until his death in 1874. It was during his tenure, and under his aegis, that the famous confrontation between T.H. Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce took place at the meeting of the British Association held in Oxford on June 30, 1860, when Huxley routed the anti-Darwin Bishop of Oxford. Phillips was a frequent correspondent of Darwin, and received from Darwin the three volumes of the Geology of the Beagle voyage and a presentation copy of the Origin in 1859. Phillips was trained in geology by his maternal uncle, the great William Smith. He was one of the founders of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and served as its head until 1859. He coined the term 'Mesozoic'. 'By [his] descriptions and illustrations of the stratigraphy and characteristic fossils of particular formations, Philips contributed notably to the background of knowledge by which progress in stratigraphical classification and correlation was made possible'.
'In 1852 John Phillips brought mature geological experience to his own personal observation of the physical features of the surface of the moon, using at first the great telescope belonging to the Earl of Rosse' (DSB, with a detailed account of his life and scientific researches; see vol X pp 583-4; also DNB XV pp 1093-4 ).
Freeman 10
GBP 70000.00
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