Sold for $4,000

2 volumes, 8vo. 43 woodblock illustrations. Vol. I with 32p. advertisements dated April 1867 and vol. II with single advertisement leaf at end dated February 1868. Original green cloth, gilt-lettered on spine by Edwards & Remnant with their ticket (some minor blistering, short splits to spine ends, slight wear to corners, generally fine and bright); green cloth slipcase. Provenance: Kenneth K. Mackenzie (signature); Horticultural Society of New York (bookplate, adhesive remnant on foot of spine, a few pencil markings).

 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with 5 errata on 6 lines in Vol. I, and 9 errata on 7 lines in Vol. II. The book's slow progress towards publication was due not only to its size but the author's ill health. “About half of the eight years that elapsed between its commencement and completion were spent on it. The book did not escape adverse criticism: it was said, for instance, that the public had been patiently waiting for Mr. Darwin's pièces justicatives, and that after eight years of expectation all they got was a mass of detail about pigeons, rabbits and silk worms. But the true critics welcomed it as an expansion with unrivalled wealth of illustration of a section of the Origin” (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters, F. Darwin, editor, NY, 1958, p. 281). Freeman 877; Norman 597. A BRIGHT COPY.