by Peter Kropotkin
Signed first British edition of one of the anarchist philosopher's major works
London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1902. First British edition. Signed by Peter Kropotkin on the front free endpaper, presentation copy inscribed to William Morris Colles in the year of publication. Colles was a British literary agent and the founder and managing director of The Authors' Syndicate, Ltd. xx, 348pp. Bound in publisher's navy cloth with gilt lettering. Very Good with edge-rubbing and a little soiling to cloth, a little offsetting to endpapers, former owner's name written on front free endpaper, light foxing to contents. Quite rare in this edition, let alone signed. While Kropotkin was a prolific letter-writer, signed books by him have become scarce in the market.
The famous exiled Russian "anarchist prince," one of the foremost communist anarchist philosophers, was also a geographer and an exponent (in this particular work) of an alternative to the Social Darwinism of eugenicists like Francis Galton that was ascendant at the turn of the century. Instead of competition, Kroptkin argued, "an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation [...] made for the success of species, including the human." He did not deny competitive urges existed in humans but did not consider them the real motors of human progress. This work has since been considered an important step in the development of evolutionary biology by Stephen Jay Gould amongst other writers.