Lot 87
  • 87

Bates, Henry Walter

Estimate
1,500 - 2,000 GBP
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Description

  • Bates, Henry Walter
  • The Naturalist on the River Amazons, a Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel. London: John Murray, 1863
  • paper
FIRST EDITION, 2 volumes, 8vo, (vol.1) viii, [ii], 352pp., 32pp. adverts dated January 1863; (vol.2) vi, 424pp., folding map, 9 wood-engraved plates, illustrations, original pictorial blindstamped brown cloth gilt, dark red endpapers, slipcase

Provenance

John Lupton, armorial bookplate

Literature

Borba de Moraes p.91

Condition

A fine copy
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

Bates accompanied Wallace on his expedition to the Amazon, departing from Liverpool in 1848. The purpose of the expedition was to gather facts "towards solving the problem of the origin of species", a subject which the two participants had frequently discussed. Darwin encouraged Bates to write this account and later described it as "the best work on natural travels ever published in England". In his preface Bates states that no less than eight thousand species new to science were discovered. "During the whole of his sojourn amid the Brazilian forests his speculations were approximating to the theory of natural selection, and upon the publication of the 'Origin of Species' he became a staunch and thoroughgoing adherent of the Darwinian hypothesis" (DNB).