Himalayan Journals.

dedicated to darwin

First edition of botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker's account of his plant collecting expedition to the Himalayas between 1847 and 1849, during which he obtained 7,000 different species, including twenty-five rhododendrons new to British science, and was briefly held captive by the diwan of Sikkim.

Slightly younger than Darwin, Hooker (1817-1911) was inspired by his older colleague and eagerly read the proofs of The Voyage of the Beagle before setting out on his own first voyage in 1839, as the assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus during the Ross expedition. On his return from the Antarctic he received a congratulatory letter from Darwin asking if he would be interested in classifying the plants from the Galápagos. The two men quickly became close, and in 1844 Hooker was the first colleague to whom Darwin confided his theory of evolution by natural selection. 'As Darwin worked out the details of his theory over the next fourteen years the two men regularly discussed natural selection and Darwin would later acknowledge Hooker as "the one living soul from whom I have constantly received sympathy" (Correspondence, 7.174)' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). When Wallace in turn confided the same theory to Darwin, it was Hooker and Charles Lyell whom he asked to make the decision about priority, resulting in the double presentation to the Linnean Society. The printed dedication of the present work is to Charles Darwin, 'by his affectionate friend'.

First edition; 2 volumes, 8vo; tinted lithographic frontispiece to each volume, 10 other tinted lithographs of which 1 is a folding panorama, 6 engraved plates, 2 part-coloured folding maps in volume I, errata slip in each volume, 32-page publisher's ads dated January, 1854 in volume I, a few small pencil notes and marks, including a list of page numbers on the rear free endpaper of volume II, closed tear slightly affecting the panorama, some light spotting and offsetting; original red cloth blocked in gilt and blind with pictorial designs to the upper boards, publisher's ads on endpapers, spines and edges of boards faded, cloth rubbed and marked with some wear at the corners and edges, hinges repaired, a very good set; 408 & 487 pp.