Details
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN (1809-1882)
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1871. 2 parts in 2 volumes (184 x 121mm), 8° (185 x 119mm). 76 woodblocks in text. Half-titles. Both volumes with 16p. advertisements for John Murray's books dated January, 1871. (Quire P in vol. I slightly pulled, a few leaves in both vols. carelessly opened.) Original green cloth, covers with blind frame, spines gilt, partly unopened (corners frayed, spines lightly rubbed, inner hinges split). Provenance: Quentin Keynes (1921-2003, gift to his doctor).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST TRADE ISSUE. A FRESH AND PARTLY UNOPENED COPY. Murray printed 2,500 copies of the first issue and 2000 copies of the second, but despite the ample print run and the retail price of twenty-four shillings, a second edition was called for within weeks. Darwin had skirted around the issue of man in the Origin, only hinting in a single sentence that 'much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history' (antepenultimate paragraph), and making his readers wait over a decade for the unequivocal statement that 'man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped'. The first and most significant part of the Descent of Man explores this subject fully enough to form 'a powerfully reasoned investigation of the affinities between human beings and other mammals, and the evidence for their common origin' (Cyril Aydon, Charles Darwin, 2002, p. 250). That such a belief was not found nearly so shocking as Darwin had feared was partly because three of his closest friends, Huxley, Lyell, and Wallace, had already published on the subject. It was also because his own style was avuncular rather than confrontational, and the full implications of man's gradual evolution from a single-cell creature were easily under-estimated. Desmond and Moore hold that for many his book 'told an arm-chair adventure of the English evolving, clambering up from the apes, struggling to conquer savagery, multiplying and dispersing across the globe ... habituated to material progress, social mobility, and imperial adventure, the arriviste reading classes lapped it up.' (Darwin, 1992, pp. 579-80). Freeman 937 (noting an earlier issue of vol. I, known only in Darwin's own copy); Garrison-Morton 170; Norman 599.
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 1871. 2 parts in 2 volumes (184 x 121mm), 8° (185 x 119mm). 76 woodblocks in text. Half-titles. Both volumes with 16p. advertisements for John Murray's books dated January, 1871. (Quire P in vol. I slightly pulled, a few leaves in both vols. carelessly opened.) Original green cloth, covers with blind frame, spines gilt, partly unopened (corners frayed, spines lightly rubbed, inner hinges split). Provenance: Quentin Keynes (1921-2003, gift to his doctor).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST TRADE ISSUE. A FRESH AND PARTLY UNOPENED COPY. Murray printed 2,500 copies of the first issue and 2000 copies of the second, but despite the ample print run and the retail price of twenty-four shillings, a second edition was called for within weeks. Darwin had skirted around the issue of man in the Origin, only hinting in a single sentence that 'much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history' (antepenultimate paragraph), and making his readers wait over a decade for the unequivocal statement that 'man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped'. The first and most significant part of the Descent of Man explores this subject fully enough to form 'a powerfully reasoned investigation of the affinities between human beings and other mammals, and the evidence for their common origin' (Cyril Aydon, Charles Darwin, 2002, p. 250). That such a belief was not found nearly so shocking as Darwin had feared was partly because three of his closest friends, Huxley, Lyell, and Wallace, had already published on the subject. It was also because his own style was avuncular rather than confrontational, and the full implications of man's gradual evolution from a single-cell creature were easily under-estimated. Desmond and Moore hold that for many his book 'told an arm-chair adventure of the English evolving, clambering up from the apes, struggling to conquer savagery, multiplying and dispersing across the globe ... habituated to material progress, social mobility, and imperial adventure, the arriviste reading classes lapped it up.' (Darwin, 1992, pp. 579-80). Freeman 937 (noting an earlier issue of vol. I, known only in Darwin's own copy); Garrison-Morton 170; Norman 599.
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Please note that the image on p. 49 of the printed catalogue is of lot 41.