Prodrome d'une Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles

Description:

First edition. Rare. Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart’s (1801-1876) Prodrome d'une Histoire des Végétaux Fossiles 1828 is one of the foundational texts in the history of palaeobotany and a landmark in the development of nineteenth-century science. Written in French, the work served as the precursor to Brongniart’s monumental Histoire des végétaux fossils 1827-1836, the publication that secured his reputation as the “father of palaeobotany.”

In this pioneering study of 1828, Brongniart brought scientific order to the study of fossil plants, proposing a classification system that aligned extinct species with their nearest living relatives. His method established the intellectual framework upon which the modern science of fossil botany was built. The importance of the Prodrome was recognised by later historians of science; the Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 described it as “a small but most important ‘Prodrome’ which brought order into chaos,” noting that its remarkably perceptive classifications formed “the basis of all subsequent progress in this direction.”

A work of exceptional significance in the history of botany, geology, and evolutionary thought.

Condition

8vo, recent cloth, gilt title to spine, orig. wrappers retained (edges chipped), page edges uncut. Some foxing; contemporary pencil notes to rear endpaper and occasional marginal annotations; ink spot to outer margin of one page. A cutting from the Literary Gazette, 24th January 1828, reviewing a lecture by Brongniart, tipped in at front. From an institutional library (Department of Geology and Mineralogy, Oxford) with a single ink stamp to foot of title.

Provenance: Inscription from the author to Prof. Buckl[and] (last few letters lost) to front wrapper. William Buckland (1784-1856) was an English theologian and palaeontologist. He wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus.