GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.

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Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Presentation copy, inscribed on the first blank: "Herren Girardin, zu freundlichem Andencken a Weimar und 30. Jun. 1831. JW Goethe". Marc Girardin (1801-1873), professor of history at the Sorbonne, met Goethe in Weimar while researching his Notices politiques et littéraires sur l'Allemagne (1835). He described Goethe as "the last and most admirable word of Celtic pantheistic literature... Goethe represents the diversity of the German spirit, as Weimar represents the diversity of states" (p. 154; our translation).This is the definitive version of the polymath's principal botanical work, first published in 1790 and here expanded with additional material — a key contribution to the development of plant morphology and taxonomic classification. The French translation was prepared under Goethe's supervision. As Lewes observed, quoted by Osler, "With regard to both Linnaeus and Wolff it may be said that they anticipated the morphology of plants, but that to Goethe belongs the credit of establishing it." Goethe challenges Linnaeus's artificial taxonomies by demonstrating a more natural principle: the commonality of leaf organs across different plant species. This approach helped shape a broader German scientific tradition informed by Romanticism. Goethe later wrote that "next to Shakespeare and Spinoza the greatest influence on me has been Linnaeus" (Koerner, p. 474).We have only been able to locate two presentations of this title at auctio

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