The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.

London John Murray 1868, 1868. 2 volumes. First edition, First issue, with five-line errata in Vol. I and seven-line errata in Vol. II, advertisements and 43 engraved illustrations. tall 8vo, original green cloth gilt lettered and decorated on the spines, decorated in blind on the covers. viii, 411, publisher’s catalogue; viii, 486, ads.

A very bright and clean copy.

“This represents the only section of Darwin’s big book on the origin of species which was printed in his lifetime and corresponds to its first two intended chapters. It contains, in Chapter xxvii, his provisional hypothesis of pangenesis; one which he thought was new, buthas a long back history” (Freeman 877).

The second part of his ‘big book’ was not published until 1875, under the title Natural Selection. It was in this work that Darwin attempted to finalise the understanding of pangenesis and an explanation of acquired characteristics and hereditary resemblance. These subjects were near to impossible to explain in Darwin’s time as scientific methodology and technology had simply not developed to the point at which finite and provable studies on genes and chromosomes could be explored.

Freeman 877