LYELL. STUDENT'S ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY, 1871, PRESENTATION COPY TO HIS WIFE

8vo, frontispiece and more than 600 woodcut illustrations, PRESENTATION COPY INCSRIBED ON HALF-TITLE TO HIS WIFE MARY ("Mary Elizabeth Lyell | from his affectionate husband | the author"), at least one pencil note in the margin, contemporary half vellum, spine in six compartments, red morocco label, marbled boards, endpapers and edges, lacking a few leaves deliberately excised or partially excised between p.162 and p.169 and between p.487 and p.493 (? perhaps for annotation for later editions), title page slightly cropped at foot

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
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A FINE PRESENTATION COPY OF THE STUDENT'S EDITION OF "ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY", INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO HIS WIFE IN THEIR LATER YEARS. Lyell and his wife Mary Elizabeth were married in July 1832, and after a geological honeymoon, they settled in Hart Street, Bloomsbury, close to the British Museum and to the Geological Society's premises in Somerset House. "Mary was well educated, and fluent in French and German, and was soon helping Lyell with translation, and offsetting his handicap of poor eyesight for reading. However, she seems to have been somewhat excluded from the scientific conversation at their dinner parties...." (Martin Rudwick, Oxford DNB)