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Grolier Club Exhibitions

Natural History

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Journal of John James Audubon, Made While Obtaining Subscriptions to His ‘Birds of America,’ 1840-1843, ed. Howard Corning.

John James Audubon. 4 vols. Boston: Club of Odd Volumes, 1929. Edition of 225.

Printed edition of the manuscript diary kept by Audubon in the years immediately following the completion of Birds of America. The diary discusses, among other things, the planning and production of the highly successful first octavo edition of Birds, published from 1840 to 1844.

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The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.

Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray 1871. Bound in original green publishers’ cloth. 

First edition, second issue, with the list of nine additional works by Darwin on the verso of the title-page in place of the errata. 

In The Descent of Man, Darwin applied his theories of evolution and sexual selection to the human species for the first time. Earlier works, such as On the Origin of Species (1859) focused exclusively on the plant and animal world. Darwin’s first published use of the word ‘evolution’ appears in this work. 

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Galápagos. World's End.

William Beebe. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (Knickerbocker Press), 1924. Edition of 100.

William Beebe’s account of his scientific expedition to the Galápagos Islands in 1923, sponsored by the New York Zoological Society. Beebe’s team studied and collected indigenous species of plants and animals, including specimens of 60 species previously unknown to science.  

This is one of 100 copies from the limited edition signed by the author. The work is richly illustrated with over 100 illustrations.