On the Origin of Species | 1859, first edition, first issue, with an original signed “with Mr Charles Darwin’s compliments” slip.

The most important book ever printed, and the closest you will ever come to owning a signed copy.

In On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, Darwin first set out the theory of evolution by natural selection, tearing down centuries of belief and rewriting humanity’s place in the world. Few works in history can truly be said to have altered the course of human thought. This is one of them.

Only 1,250 copies of the first edition were printed, and most went straight into circulation at Mudie’s Library. Survival rates in original condition are low. To find a first issue copy in the publisher’s green cloth, complete with the June 1859 catalogue and the famous folding diagram, is already an event.

What takes this copy into another realm is the autograph slip loosely inserted and signed in Darwin’s own hand: “With Mr Charles Darwin’s Compliments.” Darwin never signed copies of Origin. He refused. Which is why these little slips are coveted above almost anything else. They are the closest one can ever come to owning a signed Origin of Species.

This is the book that rewrote creation itself, paired with Darwin’s own signature. The mind that changed the world, the hand that wrote it, and the work that started it all. For a collector, there is nothing else like it.

Provenance and condition:

• Octavo.

• Original diagonal-wave-grain green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers blocked in blind.

• Pale brown coated endpapers.

• Edmonds & Remnant binder’s ticket to rear pastedown.

• 32-page publisher’s catalogue at rear dated June 1859.

• Folding lithographed diagram present.

• Signed compliments slip from Darwin loosely inserted; fine condition.

• Light vertical crease to half-title and title.

• Skilful restoration to inner hinges.

• Minor rubbing to extremities.

• Pale mark from removed Mudie’s Circulating Library label.

• Early ownership inscription of L. Anderson Rice to front endpaper.

• Note of acquisition from Mudie’s (8s, Nov. 1860).

• Bookseller’s code (Dawson’s of London, 1970s) and later discreet library slip to rear pastedown.

• Housed in a green quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery.

• An excellent example.