Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection

London: Macmillan and Co, 1870. First edition. Very Good. Octavo (leaves measuring 185 x 120 mm), collating complete. xvi, 384, 43 [publisher's catalogue]. Publisher's green cloth with spine titled in gilt. Spine a bit darkened, with some bubbling to cloth. Dustsoiling to top edge of text block, not affecting margins within. Brick red coated endpapers. Faint early ink ownership signature to upper pastedown and corresponding pencil ownership signature to margin of title-page. Inner hinges cracking, but holding firm (binding slightly loose as a result). Occasional early pencil marginalia, otherwise very clean throughout. A Very Good copy of the uncommon first edition.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913) is now best known for independently conceptualizing the theory of evolution through natural selection at roughly the same time as Charles Darwin. In fact, it was Wallace's paper, "On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type," which finally pushed Darwin to present his own writing on natural selection for the Linnean Society in July of 1858. Two of Darwin's unpublished papers, along with Wallace's paper, were presented at the meeting. The next year, of course, Darwin published his landmark On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), which fleshed out his theory of evolution and changed science forever. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection collects papers written by Alfred Russel Wallace over the course of a decade, including his groundbreaking "On the tendency of varieties..." Very Good.