Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man de Lawrence, William - 1822

J. Griffin, 1822. Two volumes bound in one, 12mo, pp (2), 212; (4), 288, lightly age-toned throughout with the occasional page with mild foxing, otherwise very sound internally, contemporary half calf and marbled boards, rubbed, slightly worn at the corners, rebacked at some point with a later calf spine. The Oates-Selborne copy, with the bookplate of Robert Washington Oates, the later presentation labels to the Gilbert White Museum in1955, and the tiny Bibliotecha Oatesiana stamp on the final page. With the earlier bookplate of the surgeon John Wheeley Gough Gutch. [A pirated edition, without illustrations. It seems scarce - I have only been able to trace two other copies from this publisher in libraries. It is curious that two printers seem to have been involved - H. Price for the first volume and Kaygill on the colophon of the second. There is no seperate title page for the second volume, and this seems consistent with the copies on record. In his mid-thirties, Lawrence published two books of his lectures which contained pre-Darwinian ideas on man's nature and, effectively, on evolution. The book was immediately attacked by Abernethy and others for materialism, and for undermining the moral welfare of the people. He was forced to withdraw the 1819 first edition after fierce criticism; the Lord Chancellor ruled it blasphemous. However, the book's notoriety was such that several publishers issued their own pirated editions, keeping the work in print for several decades. A list of the London editions of Lawrence's work, taken from OCLCis: 1819 J. Callow (authorized) 1819 s.n. (?) 1822 W. Benbow 1822 J. Smith 1822 Kaygill & Price (unillustrated) 1823 R. Carlile 1823 J. Smith 1834 J. T. Cox 1838 J. Taylor 1840 J. Taylor 1844 J. Taylor 1848 H. G. Bohn 1866 Bell & Daldy Editions were also published in Edinburgh and America. Darwin owned one of the unauthorized editions listed above, the one issued by "the notorious shoemaker-turned-publisher William Benbow, who financed his flaming politics by selling pornographic prints" (Desmond & Moore, Darwin, p. 253). Darwin was obviously impressed with Lawrence's work, citing it five times in The Descent of Man (1871). Lawrence over the later years became a pillar of the establishment. T.H. Huxley submitted the proof of his "Man's Place in Nature" to him for errors. Lawrence could find none, but gave a severe warning of the dangers of publication. Forty years on from his own publishing disaster the experience was still obviously.much in his thoughts.]. Half-Leather. Good.