DARWIN Charles The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.

Freeman, F-878.

First edition, second issue as described by Freeman.

It is in this book that the famously quoted line “Survival of the Fittest” (preface) is coined. After running through the first issue in just a week (Freeman, p.122), John Murray produced a second issue, with several variations between the two. In the first, the imprint is printed on a single line on the spine, while it is broken on to two lines in the second as here. Numerous errata also appear in the first issue, most of which were corrected in the second.

Charles Darwin began The Origin of Species with a chapter entitled Variation under domestication, which encapsulated decades of his research on a diverse array of animal and plant domesticated species. Variation in these species compared with that in their wild relatives, their origins and their selection by humans, formed a paradigm for his theory of the evolutionary origin of species by means of natural selection. This chapter, its subsequent expansion into a two-volume monograph, together with the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws, later became the foundation of scientific plant breeding. In the period up to the present, several advances in genetics (such as artificial mutation, polyploidy, adaptation and genetic markers) have amplified the discipline with concepts and questions, the seeds of which are in Darwin’s original words.

Today, we are witnessing a flowering of genomic research into the process of domestication itself, particularly the specific major and minor genes involved. In one striking way, our view of domestic diversity contrasts with that in Darwin’s writing. He stressed the abundance of diversity and the diversifying power of artificial selection, whereas we are concerned about dwindling genetic diversity that attends modern agriculture and development. In this context, it is paramount to strive for a deeper understanding of how farmer selection including both deliberate selection and unconscious selection, might generate and retain diversity. This knowledge is essential for devising in situ conservation measures” (Anthony H.D. Brown, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, Aug. 2010, 365).

Provenance : J. Errington de La Croix (signature on fly leaves and purchase note, Alger, juin 28, [18]72). John Errington de la Croix (1848-1905) was a French geologist and linguist, author of a French-Malay dictionary.