DARWIN, Charles.

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The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. First edition of the first of Darwin's works to use the famous evolutionary phrase, preceding its appearance in the fifth edition of the Origin of Species by a year. "Survival of the fittest" (p. 6) was coined by the philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer. Variation provides a full statement of the facts on which the theories of Origin were based.This work was intended as the first section of Darwin's projected "big book" on evolution, of which the Origin was an abstract. Its purpose was "to provide overwhelming evidence for the ubiquity of variation... Darwin gave numerous instances of the causes of variability, including the direct effect of the conditions of life, reversion, the effects of use and disuse, saltation, prepotency, and correlated growth. Variation also addressed a key criticism of Origin: that it lacked an adequate understanding of inheritance" (ODNB). This is the only Darwin title published by Murray to appear in the larger format of demy octavo. This copy is from the first issue, published in a run of 1,500, and is distinguished by the presence of five errata in Volume I, nine errata on seven lines in Volume II, and the spine imprint on a single line.

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