Beschreibung:

DARWIN, Charles (1809-1882). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection . London: W. Clowes and Sons for John Murray 1859. 12 o (198 x 123 mm). Folding lithographed diagram. (Hinges cracked, some scattered foxing.) Original publisher's blindstamped green cloth, spine gilt-decorated (Freeman binding variant A and with ads dated June 1859 [Freeman variant 3], no priority established; hinges cracked, minor wear at extremities); quarter morocco folding case. Provenance : Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet (1809-86), amateur botanist who married Charles Lyell's sister-in-law, Frances Horner (presentation inscription "From the Author" [secretarial hand] on the front free endpaper verso, signature on half-title dated November 1859, and bookplate). Laid in is a sheet inscribed by Darwin which reads: "From the Author. You can paste this into your copy if you think fit. C.D. Charles Darwin." PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION "OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY" (Grolier/Horblit). In this revolutionary statement of his concept of the evolution of species "Darwin not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been taken" (PMM). Presentation copies of the first edition of the Origin are VERY RARE. Freeman states that 23 presentation copies are recorded, "but there were probably more." These copies all bear secretarial inscriptions and were sent at Darwin's request to his friends and colleagues by the publisher. "There are no known author's presentation copies of the first edition inscribed in Darwin's hand" (Norman). Darwin met Charles Bunbury first in North Wales in 1842, and following a meeting in November 1845 Bunbury notes in his diary "He avowed himself to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species, though not, he said, exactly according to the doctrine of Lamarck or of the 'Vestiges'. But he admitted that all the leading botanists and zoologists, of this country at least, are on the other side" (John Bowlby, Charles Darwin , London, 1990, p. 268). On 23 December 1859, the month following Bunbury's receipt of this copy, Darwin wrote to the botanist Leonard Horner, the father-in-law of Charles Lyell, asking Horner to obtain Bunbury's opinion on the Origin , "for his knowledge is so great and accurate that every one must value his opinions highly. I shall be quite contented if his belief in the immutability of species is at all staggered" (Darwin, More Letters I [1903], p. 132). In a letter dated March 9, 1860, Bunbury offers the following comments on the Origin: "Darwin's book has made a greater sensation than any strictly scientific book that I remember. It is wonderful how much it has been talked about by unscientific people; talked about of course by many who have not read it, and by some I suspect, who have read without understanding it, for it is a very hard book. Certainly it is a remarkable work of extraordinary power and ability, and founded on a wonderful mass of careful observation. I confess, that for my own part, though, I have read it with great care, I am not altogether convinced; possibly, when I shall have seen the body of evidence which he is to bring forward in his large work, [the never published encyclopedia to be called Natural Selection ] I may be better satisfied: but as yet, I doubt. It is, however, a great triumph for Darwin that he has made converts of the greatest geologist [presumably Lyell, Bunbury's brother-in-law] and the greatest botanist of our time; at least, Joseph Hooker so far adopts the Darwinian theory that he considers it not as proved, but as a hypothesis, quite as admissible as the opposite one of permanent species, and far more suggestive. I wonder what Humbold