Darwin, Charles | First edition, first issue, of one of the author's scarcest titles

Darwin, Charles

The Power of Movement in Plants. London: John Murray, 1880

8vo (187 x 127 mm). 196 woodcut illustrations throughout, two lines of errata at the bottom of page x, publisher's advertisements dated May 1878 at rear. Publisher's green cloth, covers stamped in blind, spine gilt-lettered, dark brown coated endpapers.

First edition, first issue

Darwin often involved his children in his experiments and continued to collaborate with them as they entered adulthood. On this study of climbing plants, his second-to-last book published, Darwin worked with his son Francis, who trained as a doctor but became a botanist, to conduct experiments and prepare the manuscript. This is one of Darwin's scarcer titles: only 1,500 copies were printed, and it sold the fewest copies of any of his works. This particular copy remains almost entirely unopened after page 96.

"The book was an extension of Charles Darwin's work on climbing plants and it showed that the same mechanisms can be observed in plants in general. By extending the idea of irregular circumnutation the Darwins analysed the growth movement of plants in response to factors of the environment such as light, gravity, and wounds. In addition, they demonstrated that the mechanism of curvature in both roots and shoots was the result of differential growth rates. They could also confirm that the effect of the stimuli on the growth movement was indirect and that light and gravity act on some substance in the tip of the root and the shoot, which is transmitted to other parts of the plant. Francis Darwin later refined some of the experimental techniques and modified their theoretical conclusions" (ODNB).

A particularly nice copy

REFERENCE

Freeman 1325