THE DOUBLE HELIX: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA [First UK edition - first impression]

First impression of the first UK edition, published in 1968. Dustwrapper designed by Dorothy Judd. With 19 half-tone illustrations and 11 diagrams. ***Near fine in bright mauve cloth-covered boards with gilt titles and striking DNA spiral design to the spine. The gilt is still beautifully bright, having been protected by the dustwrapper. Head and tail of spine just very slightly creased. Corners sharp. Light vertical reading crease to the spine (Nearly all of the copies we have handled have this vertical crease). Boards very clean and unmarked. Top edge stained mauve by the publisher - lightly faded as usual. Page block clean without any of the usual foxing. Just the very slightest of a reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. Pages clean. No creases or tears. ***In a near fine typographical dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of 35s net. The dustwrapper is complete, with just minimal rubbing and creasing at the edges, mainly to the top and tail of the spine - far less than is usually encountered with this title. No serious creases, chips or tears. Very minimal surface loss to the edges of the top and tail of the spine and corner tips of the foldovers. Spine of dustwrapper unfaded. Back panel nice and clean even though a white background. ***222mm x150mm. 315 pages - with a Foreword by Sir Lawrence Bragg. ***'The classic personal account of Watson and Crick's groundbreaking discovery of the structure of DNA. By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. ***'In 1962 the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology was awarded to Francis H. C. Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice H. F. Wilkins, the three men who almost a decade earlier had worked together, merging data from chemistry, physics, and biology, to solve the structure of DNA--Crick and Watson on the building of a hypothetical model that would conform in all its parts to what Wilkins' X-ray pictures had already shown of the molecule. The interplay of ideas, temperaments, and circumstances was an especially fortuitous one, since the result was something that, in Watson's words, was too pretty not to be true: the double helix.' (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***A superior copy of the first impression of the first UK edition. The book was surprisingly successful for a science book and was soon reprinted - first impressions are now quite uncommon, and very hard to find in such collectable condition with no significant faults. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.…