The Natural History of Man Comprising Inquiries into the Modifying Influence of Physical and Moral Agencies on the Different Tribes of the Human Family (Volumes I and II)

4th edition. Complete in two volumes. Vol. 1: xxiv, 346pp. Vol 2: viii, 343-720pp.  Illustrated with sixty-two hand-coloured plates (one plate is loose) engraved on steel and one hundred in-text black and white wood engravings Tan leather-covered boards; five spine ribs, gilt Royal Medical Benevolent College crest and borders on front, gilt titles on red spine label. 8vos. All edges heavily rubbed. Marbled text block edges and endpapers marbled. Prize plates on the front pastedown. Foxing to prelim pages. Internally neat clean, bright and tight; barring occasional foxing. A pre-Darwinian text that attempts to categorise the known species of the world dependent on characteristics and in a way which holds to the biblical notion that all men descend from a singe being.