The Selfish Gene

First edition, second impression (from 1976, the same year as first publication).  x, 224pp.  Black cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine.  8vo.  Cloth a little rounded at corners and spine tips.  Some mild spotting on text block edges.  Internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original illustrated dust wrapper, not price clipped.  The wrapper is a little shelf worn and lightly bumped on extreme edges, with (unfortunately) reinforcing tape applied at corners and spine ends.  Dust wrapper now protected in an archival-quality Mylar sleeve, fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.

First published in 1976, Dawkins’ hugely influential popular science book, The Selfish Gene revolutionised, controversially, view of evolution.  Introducing the term ‘genes’ eye-view’ Dawkins argues that natural selection operates on genes rather than whole organisms or species, regulating living bodies to the realms of survival machines.   Ian McEwan, writing in the Guardian in 2006, said The Selfish Gene “hastened a sea change in evolutionary theory, it affected profoundly the teaching of biology, it enticed an enthusiastic younger generation into the subject, and spawned a huge literature, and eventually a new discipline – memetics. At the same time, and this is the measure of its achievement, it addressed itself without condescension to the layman. It did so provocatively, and with style.”