[Rarebooks] F/S A Milestone Of Natural History

[Garry R Austin]

For your consideration we offer the following net to all and postpaid at 
$125


From
Austin's Antiquarian Books
PO Box 730
Wilmington Vt 05363
mail at austinsbooks.com
802 464-8438

(Chambers, Robert W.) Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation & 
Explanations, A Sequel To Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation, 
Two Volumes Bound As One. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846.               
        $125.00
Fourth edition; Octavo; pp; vi, 353; vii, (i), 142; three quarter brown 
leather and black cloth boards, marbled endpapers and edges; A fair 
copy, rear board detached but present, front board started, the book 
bloc is solid, intact and complete with sporadic light foxing. Two 
previous owner's names from the same family (Poincey) appear and one of 
these owner's has left six well written legible notes in pencil 
regarding the nature of sleep, jealousy, a quote from Confusius, another 
from Cicero in Latin and another in French;  there are two trimmed steel 
engravings from another source affixed to the front and rear 
paste-downs, one of Charles Fremont and the other I have not identified.

"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is an 1844 work of 
speculative natural history and philosophy by Robert Chambers. Published 
anonymously in England, it brought together various ideas of stellar 
evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible 
narrative which tied together numerous scientific theories of the age. 
Vestiges was initially well received by polite Victorian society and 
became an international bestseller, but its unorthodox themes 
contradicted the natural theology fashionable at the time and were 
reviled by clergymen -- and subsequently by scientists who readily found 
fault with its amateurish deficiencies. The ideas in the book were 
favoured by Radicals, but its presentation remained popular with a much 
wider public. Prince Albert read it aloud to Queen Victoria in 1845. 
Vestiges caused a shift in popular opinion which -- Charles Darwin 
believed -- prepared the public mind for the scientific theories of 
evolution by natural selection which followed from the publication of On 
the Origin of Species in 1859". Chambers was not revealed as the author 
until a posthumous 12th edition added his name to the title page.
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