On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing.

vi 365 pages, indexed, illustrated, plus 32 pages of other John Murray publications. Brown cloth with gilt flower on front panel. The boards: The spine strip is badly damaged, with loss along the edge and tail; the front board wears the remnants of a label, and the edges are chipped. Internally: there are two handwritten numbers on the head of the spine strip, the top one crossed out, the second repeated on the verso of the front end paper; the front end paper and the following blank page are partially detached; there are a series of ownership inscriptions - a stamp on the front end paper; three on the title page as well as two more interspersed along the page's blank edge and o, plus a handwritten one, again on the title page. One of the ownership stamps is superimposed on an association one (ECLECTIC ASSOCIATION of VICTORIA), the latter with its stamp also on the blank edge of the fold out diagram. Over the date of the handwritten one is a perfect small, round ink blob, which has seeped onto its verso and beyond that onto the blank head of the Contents page. And finally two tiny l closed closed tear at the head of pp 181 and 183, and well as minute loss on page 183, all of which could be a printer's fault. It is not a pretty copy, but beyond the preliminaries it is solidly bound and the print unmarked. First edition of this important work. "Fertilisation of Orchids is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing.[1] Darwin's previous book, On the Origin of Species, had briefly mentioned evolutionary interactions between insects and the plants they fertilised, and this new idea was explored in detail.The book was his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection, and explained how complex ecological relationships resulted in the coevolution of orchids and insects. The view has been expressed that the book led directly or indirectly to all modern work on coevolution and the evolution of extreme specialisation." (Wikipedia).