INVENTORY #142916
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. In Two Volumes
DARWIN, Charles
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This work began as an expansion of the first two chapters of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it also contains, in Chapter XXVII, a description of Darwin's theory of heredity which he called pangenesis. In this chapter he proposed that each part of the body continually emitted its own type of small organic particles called gemmules that aggregated in the gonads, contributing heritable information to the gametes. Darwin was worried as to whether anyone would even read these large volumes, let alone accept his theory. Then an anonymous review by George Henry Lewes in the Pall Mall Gazette praised the work's "noble calmness ... undisturbed by the heats of polemical agitation," making the far from calm Darwin laugh.
Publication Info
- Publisher: John Murray
- Edition: Second Edition, revised, Eighth thousand
- Date Published: 1893
- Place Published: London
- ISBN: n/a
Details
- Condition: Fair
- Signed: No
- Dust Jacket: No
- Jacket Condition: n/a
- Details:
2 vols.: xiv, 473; x, 495 p. 22 cm. Green cloth. Second volume has extremely worn top front corner with cloth missing, dent in spine, bumped corners, and worn bottom fore-edges. Vol. I looks better with stain on front, worn fore-edges, bumped corners. A bit of softening to spine ends both volumes. Ink inscription from 1899 on front endpaper vol. I. A front endpaper torn out of vol. II.