Sold for $12,500

2 volumes, 8vo. 16pp. publisher’s advertisements dated January 1871 in each volume. (Some scattered spotting primarily to postlims.) Original green cloth, spine gilt-lettered (slightly rubbed); quarter green morocco folding case. Provenance: Sir Kenelm Edward Digby GCB (1836-1916) English lawyer (armorial bookplate). 

 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE WORD "EVOLUTION" IN DARWIN'S WORKS, preceding its appearance in the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species the following year. "This is really two works. The first demolished the theory that the universe was created for Man, while in the second Darwin presented a mass of evidence in support of his earlier hypothesis regarding sexual selection" (Garrison-Morton). In 1847 Wallace and Bates, friends through their shared interest in entomology, set out to "travel to the tropical jungles to collect specimens, ship them home for sale, and gather facts 'towards solving the problem of the origin of species' - a frequent topic of their conversations" (DSB). Wallace and Darwin’s researches so closely mirrored each other that in 1858 the two published a joint first announcement of the theory of natural selection. Bates stayed in South America for eleven years, returning the year after Darwin presented his first papers to the Linnean Society. He was an avid supporter of Darwin's arguments, and Darwin showed great interest in his researches into mimicry amongst butterflies, in which Bates saw "a most beautiful proof of natural selection.” Darwin described one of Bates’ papers on the subject as "one of the most remarkable and admirable papers I have ever read in my life" (DSB). Freeman 128-29; Garrison & Morton 170; Norman 599.