DARWIN, Charles. - Voyage d'un Naturaliste autour du Monde f - Lot 26

DARWIN, Charles. - Voyage d'un Naturaliste autour du Monde fait à bord du navire le Beagle de 1831 à 1836. Translated from the English by M. Ed. Barbier - Paris, Reinwald, 1875 - In-8, (2) ff, VIII, 552, 20 pp, in-text figs, publisher's green percaline. (A. Lenègre). First edition of the French translation of this famous work. "Barely twenty-two years old, in 1831, M. Darwin was called upon to take part in a scientific expedition, sent by the English government to reconnoitre in detail the southern extremity of the American continent and explore various points of the South Sea... The voyage of the Beagle, which lasted five years, had the greatest influence on Darwin's intellectual development, and when he first set foot on South American soil, the idea of the genealogical theory germinated within him, which he later succeeded in fully developing... In this account, which is far superior to the usual average of these kinds of works, we not only become acquainted with Darwin's amiable personality, but also find numerous traces of the path he followed to arrive at his ideas." (Preface). A good, well-preserved copy in the publisher's Lenègre hardback.