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FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, OF DARWIN’S VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
DARWIN, Charles, Phillip Parker KING, Robert FITZROY and others. Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America and the Beagle’s Circumnavigation of the Globe.
London, Henry Colburn, 1839. 3 volumes plus the separately bound appendix to volume 2. 8vo. With 9 folding engraved charts and maps, 47 full-page engraved plates with views, 2 charts and 1 diagram, and 6 wood-engravings in the text. Mid-nineteenth-century red morocco, marbled sides.
| Orders and Information | € 43250 |
First edition, first issue, of Darwin's first book (indeed, his first extensive publication), the journal of his observations from his voyage on the “Beagle” and his interpretations of them. It was these observations that led to his theory of evolution, and except for his Descent of Man the present book is his most famous and most frequently reprinted (usually under the later title The Voyage of the Beagle . The first two volumes are by other authors, but are also essential sources for information about Darwin’s most famous voyage. Leaf 2C2 in volume 2 appears to be a cancel, not mentioned in the literature.
Each volume with the armorial bookplate (with motto “Till then thus”) of Richard Heywood Heywood-Jones (ca. 1800?-1871), son of a Liverpool banker, and a twentieth-century bookplate. Without the advertisements at the end of the appendix to volume 2, present in some copies. The eight folding maps and charts that are often included in pockets are here mounted on cloth at the end of each volume, and the other folding map is also mounted on cloth. A very good copy, with generous margins and only some light foxing in a few text leaves and in the margins of two folding maps, small tears repaired in two folding maps, affecting only the borders, minor offsetting from the views, some very minor marginal defects, and the cancel leaf nearly detached. Darwin’s first important publication, rare in such good condition.
