Rare Charles Darwin book to sell for £50,000

The book cost fifteen shillings new - or 75p in modern money - when it was originally published on November 24,1859.

It is now expected to sell for between £50,000 and £70,000 at Sotheby’s in London on July 11.

Only 1,250 first edition copies of the book were printed,so comparatively few were produced and it is not known how many have survived.

Darwin was paid just £180 for the first edition of the book.

The copy coming up for sale at Sotheby’s is part of a Charles Darwin collection - including books and letters written by Darwin and other items from the Darwin era – assembled by Toronto investment banker, Garrett Hermanwhich is set to fetch between £427,000 and £612,000 at the Sotheby’s’ auction.

At Sotheby’s in New York in April 2005, a single handwritten page from the original manuscript of On The Origin Of Species, sold for £143,164 or about £900 a word.

A photograph of Charles Darwin by trail blazing Victorian camerawoman, Julia Margaret Cameron, is expected to sell for between £5,000 and £7,000 at the imminent Sotheby’s’ auction.

A first edition copy of Darwin’s 1862 book, on the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, is likely to fetch between £2,500 and £3,500 at the auction.

Pasted inside the book is a money order, signed by Darwin to Kent nurseryman, John Cattell from whom Darwin bought plants .

Charles Darwin, naturalist, geologist and originator of the theory of natural selection, was born at The Mount,Shrewsbury,on February 12,1809.

He was the fifth child and second son of Robert Waring Darwin,Shrewsbury’s principal physician.

Charles Darwin’s parents are buried at St Chad’s church, Montford, near Shrewsbury. Darwin was educated at Shrewsbury School.

The statue of Darwin, outside Shrewsbury library, was unveiled on August 10,1894 and cost £1,086 nine shillings and sixpence.