Darwin (Charles) On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, third edition (seventh thousand), half-title, folding lithographed plate, advertisement f. at end, newspaper clippings tipped onto title verso and first contents page, pencil markings and marginal notes, 1 or 2 ff. with short closed tear running into text, some splitting to gutter but holding firm, upper hinge starting, original green cloth, spine ends and corners a little bumped and with minor fraying, slight darkening to spine, light rubbing to extremities, but a very good copy overall, [Freeman 381; PMM 344 (b), note], John Murray, 1861; and a first edition of his Insectivorous Plants, 1875 (not collated), 8vo (2)

⁂ 'the most important biological book ever written' (Freeman). The third edition 'was extensively altered, and is of interest for the addition of a table of differences between it and the second edition, a table which occurs in each subsequent edition, and also for the addition of the historical sketch... which was written to satisfy complaints that Darwin had not sufficiently considered his predecessors in the general theory of evolution... there is also a postscript on page xii... concern[ing] a review of the earlier editions by Asa Gray' (Freeman p. 78).

Provenance: 'Thomas J.T. Corfield, St. Dye, Sept. 19th, 1863' (ink inscription to head of title); João Maria de Montezuma Diniz de Carvalho (1923-2020, ink inscription to endpapers), researched for his doctorate at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, Bayfordbury (awarded 1963), and went on to become the director of the Botanical Institute and its gardens at the University of Coimbra, where he published extensively in the field of plant genetics (ink signature to front free endpaper, verso of advertisement f. and rear endpaper, the first London, 1958).