Books

London: John Murray, 1882. Original Cloth. Fine. Second Edition (Revised), Fifth Thousand, two volumes complete in fine original bindings, featuring first occurrence of the phrase "survival of the fittest." Crown 8vo (188 x 118): xiv,473,[1]; x,495,[1]pp, with 43 woodcut illustrations. Publisher's green cloth, covers paneled in blind (arches style), spine stamped in gilt, chocolate coated end papers, top edge rough-trimmed. A superb set, with bright bindings, uncracked hinges, and virtually spotless pages. Very mild rubbing to corner tips, dusty top edges, else very fine. Freeman 883. Intended originally as the first two chapters of a monumental work that Darwin envisioned but never published on the origin of species (not the Origin of 1859, which Darwin viewed as only an abstract of a more substantial project). This second edition, substantially revised and enlarged from the first edition of 1868, is the final text, in which Darwin proposed the concept of pangenesis, his…

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a book by Charles Darwin that presents his observations on the descendency and variations in animals and plants during the domestication process, highlighting the role of artificial selection.