VRIES, Hugo de (1848-1935)

First edition – de Vries’s experimental work in the 1890’s led to the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws and the discovery of the phenomenon of mutation. The rediscovery of Mendel’s laws was announced almost simultaneoulsy by de Vries, Correns and Tschermak – in that order. The results of de Vries’s more than ten years of experimentation and study were laid down in his Die Mutationstheorie, in which he described in detail his work on the segregation laws, on phenomena of variation, and on plant mutations. The book made him famous and he was recognized as one of the foremost botanists of his time.

Collation: Vol. I: Pp xii, 648, with 181 figures in the text, and 8 chromolithographed plates; Vol. II: Pp (2), xiv, 752, with 159 figures in the text, and 4 chromolithographed plates.

Binding: Dark green half cloth, gilt ruled spine, marbled boards.

Provenance: Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine.

References: Garrison & Morton, 240. Dibner, B. Heralds of Science, 1955, nr. 36. Horblit, One hundred books famous in science. 73b; DSB, XIV, 95-105; Norman 2169; Dunn, A Short History of Genetics, pp 55-61; Stubbe, History of Genetics from Prehistoric Times to the Rediscovery of Mendel’s Laws (1972), pp 226-232; Nordenskiöld, History of Biology (1928), pp 587-89.