Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$201.25 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Early printing - ninth thousand (corrected). With illustrations. 328 pages in very good, clean condition. Foxing on a few first and last pages. Previous owner's name on title page. Brown endpapers - free back endpaper is detached. Green cloth with gilt titles on the spine. Spine is faded and soiled, corners worn. Hinges are loose, but intact. Overall, book is in good condition. GOOD+
Seller: J. Wyatt Books, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Price: US$201.54 + shipping
Description: 1st Ed. [Ninth Thousand (corrected)]. VIII, 328, (2 publications) PP with tables and 15 b/w illustrations. Original blind decoration on cloth covers, gilt title on spine. Covers lightly rubbed. Small stamp of previous owner at top corner of page 1 and lower corner of page 316. A very good clean copy. Scarce. 19.5 x 13.5.
Seller: Jean-Louis Boglio Maritime Books, CYGNET, TAS, Australia
Price: US$325.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Green cloth boards, titles to spine gilt; 15 text woodcuts. Slight spint tilt tips bent. Previous owners library stamp on title page. First Edition, Eigth Thousand. The first printing was said to be 2,000 copies.The fastest selling of Darwin's publications, this was the result of ten years of research on the interaction of worms with their physical environment and close observation of their behaviour, and was Darwin's last publication prior to his death in 1882.
Seller: A Turn of the Page Books, Fishers, IN, U.S.A.
Price: US$966.20 + shipping
Description: First (only) Edition, Eighth Thousand (Corrected). Publisher's standard green cloth with blind stamped borders to front and rear boards, gilt lettering to spine, brown endpapers. Clear, removable, archival protective cover fitted to book. Octavo. 183 mm, pp. vii + 326, 15 text woodcuts. A book in Near Fine, and thus exceptional, condition. Slight pushing to corners of front board, apparently unread, and with only a couple of minor blemishes on the cloth preventing a solid Fine grade. Freeman 1366
Seller: OJ-BOOKS ABA / PBFA, SOLIHULL, United Kingdom
Price: US$1000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Leather. 8vo. John Murray. 1883. Vii, 328 pgs. 1 pgs of ads. Illustrated with Black and White Diagrams. Nine Thousand. Bound in full brown leather with gilt decoration present to the boards. With gilt titles and raised bands present to the spine. Marbled endpapers. Gilt dentelles. No ownership marks present. Boards have light wear to the extremities. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. Published in 1883, The Formation Of Vegetable Mould, Through The Action of Worms covers, in depth, the important role of the earthworm on the constantly changing topsoil of the earth. The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits (sometimes shortened to Worms) is an 1881 book by Charles Darwin on earthworms. It was his last scientific book, and was published shortly before his death (see Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms). Exploring earthworm behaviour and ecology, it continued the theme common throughout his work that gradual changes over long periods of time can lead to large and sometimes surprising consequences. It was the first significant work on soil bioturbation, although that term was not used by Darwin (it first appeared in the soil and geomorphic literature one hundred years later). E-172; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 328 pages
Seller: Last Exit Books, Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$2250.00 + shipping
Description: Ealry printing of Darwin's final work, published shortly before his death. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. In near fine condition Bookplate to the pastedown. A sharp example of this work by the leading mind in evolutionary biology. One of the most important figures in human history, English naturalist, geologist and biologist Charles Darwin became internationally renowned for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and, in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species. By the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favored competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life. Published in 1883, The Formation Of Vegetable Mould, Through The Action of Worms covers, in depth, the important role of the earthworm on the constantly changing topsoil of the earth.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.