Darwin Found
Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by charles in Countries, People, Places, Scientists
Do you have any old books? If so, one of them may be worth a lot of money. A first edition of Charles Darwin’s ‘On The Origin of Species’ has just been found in a toilet bookcase. The book is said to be worth $100,000.
It would be interesting to hear what Darwin would say about that. No doubt he would have a quiet laugh. He spent five years cooped up on a boat rolling over the high seas to gather the evidence to write the book. Then he refused to publish it for another 20 years in case it offended Christian religous leaders and the faithful. Now his great work consigned to a toilet for a long time is seeing the light of day with the perfume of dollar bills floating after it. Survival of the fittest indeed. Who said the book is dead? Recently, I wrote the script for a short audio on Darwin’s life and it has now been published on at
It would be interesting to hear what Darwin would say about that. No doubt he would have a quiet laugh. He spent five years cooped up on a boat rolling over the high seas to gather the evidence to write the book. Then he refused to publish it for another 20 years in case it offended Christian religous leaders and the faithful. Now his great work consigned to a toilet for a long time is seeing the light of day with the perfume of dollar bills floating after it. Survival of the fittest indeed. Who said the book is dead? Recently, I wrote the script for a short audio on Darwin’s life and it has now been published in audio form.
Thanks to apsmuseum for the use of this photo from flickr
Emma
Nov 26th, 2009
It’s amazing how valueble a book can be. The first entire collection of Shakespeare’s plays to be published in 1623 was the First Folio, which originally sold for twenty shillings. In 2006, one of the 750 first edition copies sold for $5.1 million, making it the most expensive book to ever be sold!!
I think I will definitly pay more attention to books in the toilet from now on.
Sarah
Nov 26th, 2009
I recently went to an antiquarian book fair with my grandfather and I was shocked to see that there were a number of books selling for well into the thousands. My grandfather was like a kid in a sweet shop.
I suppose books like this reflect their branding – ‘antique’ and their original purpose of being read has been lost. I did not make myself very popular at the book fair when I said that you could probably get something cheaper off Amazon.