FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION OF DARWIN'S 'JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES'

DARWIN, CARLO [CHARLES].

Viaggio di un naturalista Intorno al Mondo. [i.e. English "Journal of Researches" or "Voyage of the Beagle"].

Torino, Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, (1872). Large8vo. In publisher's original full green cloth. Embossed title with gilt lettering to spine and front board. Corners of binding bumped and lower part of back hindge with a small tear. An overall very fine and clean copy. (2), 464 pp.

First Italian translation of Darwin's Journal of researches, now known as Voyage of the Beagle, being his first published book. As Darwin later recalled in his autobiography 'The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career'.

"On its first appearance in its own right, also in 1839, it was called Journal of researches into the geology and natural history etc. The second edition, of 1845, transposes 'geology' and 'natural history' to read Journal of researches into the natural history and geology etc., and the spine title is Naturalist's voyage. The final definitive text of 1860 has the same wording on the title page, but the spine readsNaturalist's voyage round the world, and the fourteenth thousand of 1879 places A naturalist's voyage on the title page. The voyage of the Beagle first appears as a title in the Harmsworth Library edition of 1905. It is a bad title: she was only a floating home for Darwin, on which, in spite of good companionship, he was cramped and miserably sea-sick; whilst the book is almost entirely about his expeditions on land." (Freeman)

The first edition appeared in German in 1844, at the instigation of Baron von Humboldt, and the second in Danish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish, in Darwin's lifetime

Freeman 211

Order-nr.: 53225