The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.

DARWIN, Charles.

Item Number: 137541

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1871.

First American edition, first issue of the first of Darwin’s works in which the term “evolution” appears (Freeman 941). Octavo, 2 volumes, original publisher’s cloth, gilt titles to the spine, top edge gilt. In near fine condition, small name to the front free endpaper. Rare and desirable in this condition.

The book, in its first edition, contains two parts, the descent of man itself, and selection in relation to sex. The word 'evolution' occurs [Volume I, p. 2] for the first time in any of Darwin's works" (Freeman, 128-29). It also contains Darwin's important (and then controversial) statement that the extinct ancestors of Homo Sapiens would have been classified among the primates. "One of the ten most significant books ever written" (Sigmund Freud). Freeman 937; Garrison-Morton 170; Printing and the Mind of Man 169; Rieber 121.