"JUST MIGHT BECOME PRIMATOLOGY'S SILENT SPRING": FIRST EDITION OF VISIONS OF CALIBAN, INSCRIBED BY JANE GOODALL

GOODALL, Jane and PETERSON, Dale. Visions of Caliban. On Chimpanzees and People. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Octavo, original half green cloth, original dust jacket. $450.

First edition of co-authors Goodall and Peterson's "urgent manifesto of environmental activism," inscribed on the half title by Goodall, "For B— & N— With my best wishes Jane Goodall," with 14 pages of illustrations, a fine copy in the original dust jacket.

Visions of Caliban, co-authored by Goodall and Dale Peterson, "just might become primatology's Silent Spring" (Alison Jolly, Nature). With Goodall's text italicized, "she writes with exemplary modesty and clarity. Her voice enhances this book's value as an important document in the annals of inter-species relations" (Washington Post). It is "an authoritative work of natural history, and an urgent manifesto of environmental activism. Peterson and Goodall want us to know that the chimpanzee, so funny and so familiar, is actually an abused and endangered species. Above all, they encourage us to look on the chimpanzee as something more nearly human than we have allowed ourselves to believe… Goodall sums it up when she describes how Louis Leakey responded to her earliest discoveries of the tool-making and tool-using abilities of chimpanzees in the wild. 'Ah!' said the famous paleontologist. 'Now we must redefine Man, redefine Tool or accept chimpanzees as humans'" (Los Angeles Times). Visions of Caliban is "a powerful indictment of human cruelty, a convincing plea for animal rights" (Kirkus). First edition, first printing: with 14 pages of illustrations, including frontispiece plates and eight pages of color images. Co-author Peterson also authored Deluge and the Ark: A Journey into Primate Worlds (1989).

A fine inscribed copy.