Details
BLUMENBACH, Johann Friedrich (1752-1840). De generis humani varietate nativa liber. Gttingen: Widow of A. Vandenhoeck, 1776.
8o (200 x 119 mm). 2 engraved plates. (Some browning and spotting.) Contemporary calf, spine gilt. Provenance: early cropped inscription on title-page; Giovanni Fabroni (1752-1822), best known for two memoirs on galvanic phenomena (ink stamp on front free endpaper, and a fragment of a letter to Giovanni Fabroni laid in).
FIRST EDITION, second issue (title a cancel dated 1776). Blumenbach was the founder of Anthropology. "He was preceded by Tyson and Linn who had prepared the ground for his studies by relating man to the order of the primates. Linn had distinguished four races of man chiefly by the color of their skin. From these premises Blumenbach was able to develop the thesis that all living races are varieties of a single species, homo sapiens, and that their differences were small compared with those between man and the nearest animal; 'innumerable varieties of mankind run into each other by insensible degrees.' It is not surprising therefore that Blumenbach was opposed to the practice of slavery and the then current belief in the inherent savagery of the colored races" (PMM). Garrison-Morton 156 (first issue); PMM 219 (first issue); Norman 250. -- [Bound with:] HUNTER, John (d. 1809). Disputatio inauguralis, quaedam de hominum varietatibus, et harum causis, exponens. Edinburgh: Balfour and Smellie, 1775. 8o. Provenance: Mr. Shiels (presentation inscription by the author on title verso). PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Norman 1123.
8o (200 x 119 mm). 2 engraved plates. (Some browning and spotting.) Contemporary calf, spine gilt. Provenance: early cropped inscription on title-page; Giovanni Fabroni (1752-1822), best known for two memoirs on galvanic phenomena (ink stamp on front free endpaper, and a fragment of a letter to Giovanni Fabroni laid in).
FIRST EDITION, second issue (title a cancel dated 1776). Blumenbach was the founder of Anthropology. "He was preceded by Tyson and Linn who had prepared the ground for his studies by relating man to the order of the primates. Linn had distinguished four races of man chiefly by the color of their skin. From these premises Blumenbach was able to develop the thesis that all living races are varieties of a single species, homo sapiens, and that their differences were small compared with those between man and the nearest animal; 'innumerable varieties of mankind run into each other by insensible degrees.' It is not surprising therefore that Blumenbach was opposed to the practice of slavery and the then current belief in the inherent savagery of the colored races" (PMM). Garrison-Morton 156 (first issue); PMM 219 (first issue); Norman 250. -- [Bound with:] HUNTER, John (d. 1809). Disputatio inauguralis, quaedam de hominum varietatibus, et harum causis, exponens. Edinburgh: Balfour and Smellie, 1775. 8o. Provenance: Mr. Shiels (presentation inscription by the author on title verso). PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Norman 1123.