Materials for the Study of Variation Treated with Especial Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species.

£2,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

inscribed to a colleague First edition of the most important of Bateson's scientific works published before he learned of Mendel's laws. Presentation copy inscribed in the year of publication to his colleague, 'S.F. Harmer, with kind regards, W.B., February 1894'. Uncommon inscribed. William Bateson (1861-1926) was one of the leading figures in the birth of genetics and the revival of Darwinian evolution at the turn of the twentieth century, though he had initially questioned Darwin's gradual accumulation of small heritable changes and instead studied how major (discontinuous) changes are inherited. He focused on plant hybrids, and the present volume summarised his discoveries (Hook Norman, Norman Library of Science and Medicine 134). But the book also expounded on a fundamental question: 'Variation is the cause of the evolution of species; but what causes variation, and how does it happen?' (Printing and the Mind of Man 356). Only two years later, in 1896, Bateson read the first paper by Hugo de Vries in the series that would reintroduce Mendelian genetics to the scientific community. He 'promptly turned to Mendel's text 'Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden' and recognized its significance... Eagerly he persuaded the [Royal Horticultural] society to have the paper translated into English and published in its Journal. Aided by his contacts in the Royal Horticultural Society and his friends in the Royal Society, Bateson gained support for the programme of Mendelian experiments upon

• Binding: Hardcover

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