OWEN, Richard.

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Palaeontology or a Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals and their Geological Relations. First edition of the author's major work on the subject, which elaborates on animal taxonomy and comparative anatomy and is copiously illustrated with fossil impressions. Owen was "the most distinguished vertebrate zoologist and palaeontologist of Victorian England" (Freeman, p. 222) and the most serious opponent to Darwin's Origin of Species (1859).Owen's "initial ordering of the fossil reptiles and mammals of Britain, the virtual creation of a comparative vertebrate osteology and odontology, and his design for the Natural History Museum - all laid the groundwork for others who, as intended in the assumption of a progressing science, would alter their shape and challenge their substance" (ODNB). His crowning achievement was founding the Natural History Museum following a decades-long campaign that initially attracted near-unanimous opposition among his peers.

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