– 19 – A u g u s t 2 0 2 2 “With Mr. C. Darwin’s Compliments & Thanks”: Darwin’s Variation Under Domestication, Very Rare Presentation-Association First Edition, With Presentation Note In Darwin’s Hand Laid In 20. DARWIN, Charles. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. London, 1868. Two volumes. Octavo, original gilt-stamped green cloth, custom chemise and clamshell box. $59,000. Very rare presentation-association first edition, first issue, of Darwin’s hypothesis of pangenesis, with an autograph presentation note in Darwin’s hand, on his letterhead stationery, that reads: “Dec. 24, with Mr. C. Darwin’s compliments & thanks.” The recipient, Joseph Prestwich, was a renowned geologist and Darwin’s Kentian neighbor, friend, and correspondent. Presentation copies of Darwin’s works are almost always found with an inscription in a secretarial hand; presentations in Darwin’s actual hand, as here, are quite uncommon. A lovely copy in the original cloth. This work “took up in detail that subject which had been confined to one chapter of the Origin. It contained [Darwin’s] hypothesis of pangenesis, by means of which he tried to frame an explanation of hereditary resemblance, inheritance of acquired characters, atavism, and regeneration. It was a brave attempt to account for a number of phenomena which were beyond the bounds of scientific knowledge in his day… It was… a point of departure for particulate theories of inheritance in the later 19th century” (DSB). First issue, in first-issue binding, with errata points specified in Freeman; the first issue of 1500 copies sold out within a week of its publication. With four pages of advertisements dated December 1866 in both Volume I and II, and an additional leaf of advertisements dated February 1868 in Volume II. Bookplate of recipient Joseph Prestwich (1812-96). Darwin wrote on a number of occasions to Prestwich, most notably after the publication of The Origin of Species, when he sought Prestwich’s “general criticisms”: “I have always admired your various memoirs so much that I should be eminently glad to receive your opinion, which might be of real service to me” (12 March 1860). Prestwich was a wine merchant and avid geologist who was not able to devote himself fully to science until he retired from business in 1872; in 1874 he was offered and accepted the chair of geology at Oxford. While most of his researches were strictly geological, he did oversee and publish the results of an important excavation of human and animal remains: “Prestwich w[as] among the first to uncover Stone Age tools—worked flint—that seemed to push the first appearance of human beings back to a time contemporaneous with extinct fossil mammals… Lyell summarized the results for his British Association audience, which also provided him with a suitable opening for a few words on Darwin” (Browne, 80). During these years, Prestwich and his sister Isabella Civil Prestwich “had built a house high on the downs above the village of Shoreham in Kent in 1865, and this, Darent Hulme, now became his home” (ODNB), making him a neighbor of Darwin’s, with their homes roughly eight miles from each other. Faint fold lines to stationery. A hint of rubbing to corners. Very nearly fine in fresh and bright original cloth. A most desirable presentation-association copy.
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