The Movements And Habits Of Climbing Plants. Second Edition, Revised. With Illustrations. Darwin, Charles.

First edition in book form, much preferred by Darwin over his original paper published in 1865 in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society. The work offers supporting evidence for natural selection through observing plant adaptations. Darwin undertook his original research for Climbing Plants during an intense period of ill health and was concerned upon its completion that it would be rejected by the Linnean Society for being too long. He recounted his dissatisfaction with the original paper in Life and Letters: "In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on 'Climbing Plants', and sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this paper cost me four months: but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The paper was little noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and published as a separate book it sold well" (vol. I, p. 92). The paper was, however, noticed by Fritz Müller (1822-1897), a biologist living in Brazil, who contacted Darwin with his own observations and specimens to help answer some of the questions unanswered in the original paper. The results of their correspondence are incorporated into this edition. Freeman 836. Francis Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1887. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, covers panelled in blind, dark brown coated endpapers. With 13 woodcut illustrations by George Darwin. 32 pp. publisher's advertisements dated January 1875 at rear. Wear to extremities, mainly along top edge, cloth clean, gilt bright, front inner hinge split but firm, foxing to endleaves and prelims, 20 mm closed tear resulting in chip at upper margin of sig. B1, contents clean: a very good copy.