Charles Darwin.

£50 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

First edition of this early popular biography by the science writer and advocate of evolutionary theory, Grant Allen (1848-1899). Allen was born in Canada and, after a peripatetic childhood, was partially educated in England. Following a stint lecturing in Jamaica he returned to England and 'resolved to support himself by his writing. His first book was an essay, Physiological Aesthetics (1877), which he dedicated to [Herbert] Spencer and published at his own risk. It did not sell, but it won for him some reputation and introduced his name to the editors of magazines and newspapers. At this time he began to publish popular scientific articles, some with an evolutionary moral... such as his essay The Colour Sense (1879), which won high approval from Alfred Russel Wallace; three collections of popular scientific articles... the value and accuracy of which are attested by letters from Charles Darwin and T. H. Huxley' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Though Allen devoted the second half of his career to literary fiction, and today is best known for his radical novel The Woman Who Did, he remained interested in evolutionary theory and incorporated it into some of his novels. First edition; 8vo; single leaf of incorporated publisher's ads and separately paginated 16-page publisher's ads at rear, final quarter of text unopened, occasional light spotting to contents; original blue cloth blocked in black, brown coated endpapers, spine tanned and rubbed, lightly rubbed at the

• Binding: Hardcover

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