First-edition Darwin book sells for £15,625
ground-breaking volume found in house near Inverness
Published:
A RARE book from a house near Inverness was sold for £15,625 at auction yesterday.
A first edition of Charles Darwin’s ground-breaking work, On The Origin Of Species, was published 150 years ago and transformed science with its theories on evolution and natural selection.
Only 1,250 were produced in the book’s first print run back in 1859.
A first edition sold in Norfolk in April fetched £35,000.
The auctioneers refused to divulge who was selling the book as they were “very private people”, but said it came from a family home near the city.
It fetched just over its estimated value of £10,000 to £15,000 when it went under the hammer at Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh.
Book specialist Simon Vickers said: “It has been in the family a long time.
“The family have no known connection to Darwin, and it may have been bought on its first publication.”
It was bought by a collector from the south of England, who wanted to remain anonymous.
This year marks the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth. When he died in 1882 he was given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey.
A rare copy of one of the most important documents in Scottish history was sold in the same auction for about £24,000 more than its estimated valuation.
The copy of The National Covenant, dating from 1638, fetched £32,137, well over its estimated value of £5,000 to £8,000.
The Scottish National Covenant of 1638 was the result of various attempts by the Stuart monarchy to unify religious worship throughout England and Scotland.
