by Charles Darwin
First American edition, first printing, first issue
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1860. First American edition, first printing. First issue with two quotes opposite the title page. Bound in publisher's original brown cloth decorated in blind, with titles in gilt on the spine, fold out chart intact.Very Good with moderate rubbing to cloth, shallow wear at spine ends and rubbing through at corners and bottom edge. Short splits started at hinge ends of free endpapers, front free endpaper creased and worn along top edge. Former owner name to front pastedown and first blank sheet. Contents foxed and a handful of several small, light marginal pencil notations present. A bright and well-kept copy, unsophisticated and uncommon to find free of rebinding, restoration or repair. An immensely influential work, considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology, in which Darwin postulates that species evolve over the course of generations through natural selection.