An Evolutionary Microcosm: Pleistocene and Recent History of the Land Snail P. (Poecilozonites) in Bermuda
Harvard University, 1969. First Edition. Trade Paperback. Item #225846
ISBN: B00J0HUB4Y
Pp. 407-532. Published as Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, vol. 138, no. 7 (December 26, 1969). The publication of Gould's Ph.D. dissertation on land snails, the subject of his professional research and field work. An auspicious beginning to a storied career as a public intellectual. In a review in Systematic Biology (September 1, 1971), Roger Kaesler identifies elements that would inform Gould's future writing, which would earn him a National Book Award, among other prizes: ''I discovered interspersed among and applied to details of pulmonate biology, lucid and well reasoned discussions of interest to all biologists, including such topics as iterative evolution, difficulties of infraspecific nomenclature, and paedomorphosis.' Kaesler notes, however, the book is 'not easy reading by any means' and Gould's use of computers to crunch the numbers for his statistical analysis 'are difficult to assimilate.' *** While this is technically a journal issue, it is entirely devoted to Gould's paper and it preceeds the publication of his first regularly published book by eight years. First edition (first printing). A fine copy in wrappers (paperback). Gould's own copy, from his Harvard office library, with a posthumous tipped in bookplate indicating the provenance. *** Intellectually, Gould understood the true nature of these bookplates, but the book collector in him appreciated them. In his essay 'A Seahorse for All Races' Gould writes about one of his prized possessions, a book from Charles Dickens' library: 'Dickens made no annotations, but a bookplate on the cover, presumably inserted as a come-on for a sale after Dickens' death in 1870, does prove that [he] kept and shelved the book.' *** We offer our Gould bookplates, printed letterpress in two colors, in the same spirit.
Price: $85.00