DARWIN, ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 1859

8vo, FIRST EDITION, half-title, folding lithographed plate, 32pp. publisher's catalogue at end (dated June 1859) [Freeman's variant 3], original green blind-stamped cloth [Freeman's variant b], light brown endpapers, with binder's label of Edmonds & Remnants on lower fixed endpaper, preserved in matching cloth clamshell box, hinges starting, slight staining on upper paste-down from removal of previous bookplate, slight foxing to fore-edge and at the beginning, minor wear to edges of cloth, very slightly bumped at head and base of the spine

Philip Hamond, [of the Hamond family from Westacre, Norfolk], armorial bookplate [pasted over earlier bookplate]; Geoffrey Keynes, ownership signature in pencil on half-title and note on endpaper; exhibited at the Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books, 1951, arranged by the National Book League at the Victoria & Albert Museum, label affixed to endpaper (exhibit 230)

Freeman 373; Norman 593; PMM 344b; Grolier Club, Darwin (2004), pp. 19-20

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate
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Described by Freeman as "the most important biological book ever written" and within Grolier Club, Darwin (2004) as "one of the most influential books ever written". THIS COPY BELONGED TO THE BROTHER OF ONE OF DARWIN'S SHIPMATES ON THE BEAGLE. Philip Hamond, whose bookplate is found in this book, was the brother of Lieutenant Robert Nicholas Hamond, who was a member of the ship's company on the Beagle (Midshipman, August 1832 to May 1833). Darwin described him as "a very nice gentlemanlike person", and found him very congenial company, recording time ashore with him at Buenos Aires "admiring the Spanish ladies" and climbing the mountain on Hermit Island on Christmas Eve 1832 (see Desmond and Moore, p.130-133, and The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1821-1836, pp.277-79). Hamond was the only member to represent the company at Darwin's burial at Westminster Abbey in 1882. His later life was spent as a bank manager in Fakenham in Norfolk. His brother Philip, owner of this book, was a country gentleman with an amateur interest in natural history and an early member of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, founded in 1869.