DARWIN, Charles.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Third edition, presentation copy, inscribed in a secretarial hand on the first blank, "From the Author". The book was owned by John Gilbert Baker, Keeper of the Kew Herbarium from 1890. In an 1878 letter to Darwin, Joseph Dalton Hooker described Baker as "the most hardworking useful man... His services to [Kew] have been most self-sacrificing and he is a general favourite" (Darwin Correspondence Project). An assistant at Kew from 1866, Baker (1834-1920) lectured at the London Hospital Medical School and the Chelsea Physic Garden on his specialism of ferns. He published several books on the botany of his home county of Yorkshire and also researched the flora of Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Kilimanjaro. Darwin wrote to Hooker in 1881 commenting on Baker's findings on Madagascan plants - a study that was also noticed by Wallace - and is known to have read Baker's 1868 paper, "A Synopsis of the Hymenophylleae". In 1866, John Traherne Moggridge sent Darwin samples of Baker's onion and mint seeds. A typescript label dated 1947 on the front pastedown, which identifies Baker as the former owner, explains that the book was passed to Baker's son, the botanist Edmund Gilbert (1864-1949), before being given to Job Edward Lousley (1907-1976), an amateur expert on British flora.Darwin extensively revised the Origin of Species for the third edition, which also includes a historical sketch acknowledging his predecessors in the history

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