“THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE WORK IN SCIENCE”: FIRST EDITION OF DARWIN’S LANDMARK ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, THE COPY OF BIOLOGIST SIR CHARLES WYVILLE THOMSON

DARWIN, Charles. On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life. London: John Murray, 1859. Octavo, original green cloth, uncut. Housed in a custom half green morocco clamshell box.

Rare first edition of “certainly the most important biological book ever written” (Freeman, 73). The copy of biologist Charles Wyville Thomson, lead scientific officer on the Challenger expedition and a critic of Darwin's views on natural selection.

"This, the most important single work in science, brought man to his true place in nature" (Heralds of Science 199). With folding diagram and 32 pages of advertisements. Darwin wrote in his diary that the first edition was published on November 24, 1250 copies were printed, and all copies sold the first day. Darwin "was intent upon carrying Lyell's demonstration of the uniformity of natural causes over into the organic world… In accomplishing this Darwin not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the natural order of things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had been finally established and a vast step forward in the uniformity of nature had been taken" (PMM 344). With two printed quotations on verso of half title, 32 pages of publisher's advertisements dated June 1859 (Freeman's third state of three), and a folding lithographic diagram facing page 117. Freeman 373. Horblit, 23b. Dibner, 199. The copy of naturalist Charles Wyville Thomson, with his bookplate. A marine zoologist with a particular interest in the biology of the deep seas, Thomson was the driving force behind the Challenger Expedition of 1872-76, for which he served as chief scientific officer. The 4-year expedition"founded the discipline of oceanography" (Conrad, 67) and the 40-volume publication of its findings are "without parallel in the history of scientific research" (Britannica). Thomson first crossed paths with Darwin in 1870, when he wrote to Darwin asking the eminent scientist to provide him with a recommendation for a position as professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh; even though they had never met, Darwin, impressed with Thomson's work, gladly did, and Thomson was offered the position. After the Challenger Expedition, however, Thomson saw fit to criticize some of Darwin's ideas in print, eliciting what Darwin's son Francis called "the only instance in which [Darwin] wrote publicly with anything like severity." In 1880, Darwin wrote a letter to the journal Nature that began: "I am sorry to find that Sir Wyville Thomson does not understand the principle of natural selection, as explained by Mr. Wallace and myself. If he had done so, he could not have written the following sentence in the Introduction to the Voyage of the Challenger:—'The character of the abyssal fauna refuses to give the least support to the theory which refers the evolution of species to extreme variation guided only by natural selection.' This is a standard of criticism not uncommonly reached by theologians and metaphysicians, when they write on scientific subjects, but is something new as coming from a naturalist.

Text fine, interior paper hinges with a bit of wear; original unrestored cloth in exceptional condition, with minor wear to spine extremities and a bit of bubbling to cloth on the back panel. An exceptionally clean, bright copy of this scientific landmark, with wonderful and significant provenance.