Palaeontology or A Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals and Their Geological Relations by OWEN, Richard - 1861

Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1861. Second Edition. Leatherbound. Very good. xvi, 463 p. 22 cm. 174 b&w figures. Full leather with gold impressing, raised bands, and attractive marbled text block edges. Endpapers also marbled. Front board reattached. Corners worn and small dent in bottom edge of front board. New spine label. Bookplate on front pastedown and label residue on front free.

Richard Owen (1804–1892) was a contemporary of Darwin and, like him, attended the University of Edinburgh medical school but left without completing his training. His career as an outstanding palaeontologist began when he was cataloguing the Hunterian Collection of human and animal anatomical specimens which had passed to the Royal College of Surgeons in London. His public lectures on anatomy were attended by Darwin and Owen was entrusted with the classification and description of the fossil vertebrates sent back by Darwin from the Beagle voyage. Owen was responsible for coining many of the terms now used in anatomy and evolutionary biology, including the word 'dinosaur.' Palaeontology, first published in 1860, defines, describes, and classifies all the fossil animal forms then known, and discusses the origin of species, commenting on the theories of Buffon, Lamarck, and Darwin.