Details
WELLS, William C. (1757-1817). Two Essays: One Upon Single Vision with Two Eyes; the Other on Dew... And an Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind, Part of Whose Skin Resembles that of a Negro. London: Archibald Constable, et al. 1818.
8o (215 x 131 mm). Modern half calf preserving original marbled boards; cloth folding case. Provenance: Ian Fleming (1908-1984), British author, creator of James Bond (crest with motto "Let the Deed Shaw" on box).
FIRST EDITION. IAN FLEMING'S COPY of a posthumous selection of Wells's most important works, together with his autobiography. An expatriate American physician resident in England, Wells delivered before the Royal Society in 1813 a paper on a white woman with patchy brown discolorations of the skin, which contains an almost complete anticipation of Darwin's theory of natural selection. In fact, Darwin considered Wells to have been the first to state the theory of natural selection, yet Wells's paper seems to have been ignored until it was resurrected by a correspondent of Darwin's in the 1860s. Garrison-Morton 1604.
8o (215 x 131 mm). Modern half calf preserving original marbled boards; cloth folding case. Provenance: Ian Fleming (1908-1984), British author, creator of James Bond (crest with motto "Let the Deed Shaw" on box).
FIRST EDITION. IAN FLEMING'S COPY of a posthumous selection of Wells's most important works, together with his autobiography. An expatriate American physician resident in England, Wells delivered before the Royal Society in 1813 a paper on a white woman with patchy brown discolorations of the skin, which contains an almost complete anticipation of Darwin's theory of natural selection. In fact, Darwin considered Wells to have been the first to state the theory of natural selection, yet Wells's paper seems to have been ignored until it was resurrected by a correspondent of Darwin's in the 1860s. Garrison-Morton 1604.