OWEN, Richard (1804-1892).
Memoir on the Gorilla .
London: Taylor and Francis, 1865. First Edition.

4to (12 1/2" x 10") 13 lithographed plates by M. & N. Hanhart and W. West after J. Wolf, G. H. Ford and F. Robinson (including 2 hand-colored and heightened with gum arabic and one uncolored folding plate). Some scattered foxing to plates, title-page detached with tiny tears to upper right corner and right margin and 2 ink stains in upper right corner, Green cloth, spine lettered gilt and tooled with the stamp of the Athenaeum Library, uniform chemise and slipcase.

FIRST EDITION. At the time of publication, the gorilla had only recently been captured and was an object of great popular curiosity. Richard Owen (1804-1892), the noted anatomist and paleontologist, here makes his riposte to Darwin's Origin of Species , by detailing the anatomy of the gorilla and arguing that the gorilla's brain differed too greatly for man to have descended from the recently discovered ape.

PROVENANCE: Athenaeum Library (blind accession stamp on title-page dated 1866, gilt stamp on spine); Richard Bayard Dominick (bookplate on front pastedown); Doyle's, 17 April 2019, lot 132.

Nissen ZBI 3037.