Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären Hardcover - 1790

Gotha: Carl Wilhelm Ettinger, 1790. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. 8vo (210 x 130 mm). [6], 86, [2] pp. including final blank. Bound in fine 20th century green morocco by G. Dubois d'Enghien, spine with 5 raised bands, gilt decorated and with gilt lettering in first compartment, boards with gilt ruling, rich floral gilt decoration to board inner margins, marbled endpapers. Housed in custom-made cassette. Text generally crisp and clean, with very minor age-toning and occasional faint minor spotting, tiny paper flaw to leaf C7. A fine wide-margined copy in a gorgeous binding. ---- Sparrow 86; Norman 913; DSB V, 241ff; Hagen 211; Osler 2767; Pritzel 3452; Kippenberg I, 368. - FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with Goethe's name printed above the title on title-page. Although not the first written, the Versuch was Goethe's first published testimony of his scientific interests. In it he attempted to explain the unity of type in different plant species by arguing that all plants derive from a mysterious "archetypal plant", or "Urpflanze", individual genera being modifications of this ideal type" Goethe thought that the biologist, by comparing a large number of plant and animal forms, can obtain a clear idea of the underlying principles... What Goethe sought in biology and zoology was nothing less than a theory that would explain all living forms" (DSB). Goethe's fundamentally Aristotelian concept of an ideal type had a considerable influence on the later development of botany. Erste Ausgabe. - Verlegerisches Kalkül und persönliche Differenzen ließen Göschen davon absehen, das Werk selbst zu drucken. Eine 2. Ausgabe erschien erst 1817. "Hier entstand also jenes Werk, das nach einer Bemerkung Auguste St.-Hilaires zu der kleinen Zahl der Bücher gehört, welche nicht nur ihren Urheber unsterblich machen, sondern die selber unsterblich sind. Dies Werk, auf das bis heute auf jeder Lehrkanzel für Botanik und in jeder Systematik des Pflanzenlebens Bezug genommen wird, ein Werk, das bei anfänglicher Ablehnung die Gegenbewegungen des Jhdts. alle überstand, ja heute als besonders weitsichtig anzusehen ist" (G. Benn). - Visit our website for additional images and information.