the first book to apply darwinian evolution to humanity

First edition of the first book to apply Darwinian evolution to humans, preceding Darwin's own account in The Descent of Man. With the first issue point identified by Hook and Norman, the frontispiece printed on [A]2v, forming an integral part of the preliminaries, and a likely issue point, the catalogue dated February, 1863.

'Huxley earned the nickname "Darwin's bulldog" for his outspoken defense of the theory of evolution through natural selection, particularly as it pertained to man. The present work grew out of the famous Hippocampus minor controversy of the early 1860s, in which Huxley publicly challenged the taxonomist Richard Owen's claim that man's brain differed qualitatively from those of all other mammals. Through a series of dissections of primate brains, Huxley disproved Owen's assertions that only man's brain possessed a Hippocampus minor, and demonstrated that the differences between men and apes were smaller than those between apes and the lower primates' (Hook and Norman, The Norman Library of Science and Medicine 1132).

'Written to be accessible, [Man's Place in Nature] was ignored by the highbrows and abominated by the religious press, but acquired a cachet among the middle-class public no less than among National Reformer secularists and Russian and German socialists' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

First edition, first issue; 8vo; engraved frontispiece and illustrations within the text, 8-page publisher's catalogue dated February, 1863 at rear; occasional light spots and marks to the contents but generally clean; original green morocco-grained cloth, titles to spine gilt, borders to boards blocked in blind, red coated endpapers printed with publisher's catalogue, some marks, dampstain, and loss of size affecting the cloth, corners and ends of spine a little bumped and worn, small knock to the edge of the upper board, very good condition; 159pp.

Freeman (British Natural History Books), 1855; Hook & Norman (The Norman Library of Science & Medicine), 1132.