Alfred Russel Wallace, 1876

WALLACE, Alfred Russel (1823-1913). The Geographical Distribution of Animals with a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the earth's surface. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876.

First edition, an exceptionally clean, bright copy, of the foundational work on zoogeography. "Relying on data he had collected on families and genera of terrestrial vertebrates, Wallace established evolutionary zoogeography on its modern foundation ... Wallace’s evolutionary approach to zoogeography provided a rock-solid factual basis for evolutionary biology" (DSB). Garrison and Morton 340, C.A. Wood p. 617, Eales II 355.

Two volumes, octavo (223 x 147 mm). 7 color maps and 20 plates (occasional very minor spotting internally). Original publisher’s dark-green cloth, all edges gilt, top edges gilt. Provenance: F. Cleveland Morgan (small vellum ex-libris on front pastedown and gift inscription from Abe Armitage, March 1903) – Jeremy Norman, his sale, Sotheby's, 11 December 1992, lot 400 – Sotheby's, 11 July 2017, lot 392.