£250
FIRST EDITION, 2 vols., 8vo, pp. ix, [iii], 388 + frontispiece and folding table; [iv], 460 + frontispiece and 3 plates. Additional plates included within pagination. Original blue-green cloth, spines lettered direct in gilt. Somewhat soiled and marked, edges a little bumped, spines darkened, a little wear to extremities. Initials ‘J.D.’ to early leaves, traces of adhesive from labels to front boards now removed.
A collection of writings by Karl Pearson (1857-1936), covering a wide range of subjects and including papers on statistics, biometrics, socialism, feminism and a lengthy discourse on German passion-plays, many rewritten for book publication or adapted from lectures. Having begun his career in the then-new field of mathematical statistics, Pearson became increasingly interesting in biometrics and eugenics. 'Several of Pearson's essays [...] published in his Chances of Death, and other Studies in Evolution (2 vols., 1897), show that he had already begun to explore scientific ideas that would become central components of his eugenic creed, such as Darwinism, the inheritance of physical and mental characteristics, and the differential fertility of fit and unfit stocks' (ODNB).
