2 Charles Lyell first editions are documented on this shelf, from Principles of Geology (1830) to The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863). Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Charles Lyell title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

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Principles of Geology — 1830 · John MurrayFirst edition, issued in three separately dated volumes -- volume I in January 1830, volume II in January 1832, and volume III in May 1833 -- in a first printing of about 1,500 copies. Volume I collates xvi, 511, [1] (an advertisement leaf); no half-titles were issued for volume II. Illustrated with three engraved frontispieces (two hand-colored aquatints), four map plates (two hand-colored), and more than 130…. Murray reprinted volumes I and II (dated 1832 and 1833) to accompany volume III's May 1833 debut, so a genuine first-edition set requires the original 1830 volume I and 1832 volume II paired with the 1833 volume III; a set in which the same year appears on two volumes signals a mixed reprint rather than three true first-issue volumes. Lyell revised the work through eleven editions by 1872, plus a twelfth posthumous edition in 1875; the volume count changed repeatedly -- four volumes for the third through fifth editions (1834-37), three for the sixth (1840), and two from the tenth edition (1867-68) onward -- so any set that does not collate as three volumes dated 1830, 1832, and 1833, or that carries any edition statement, is not the first edition.
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man — 1863 · John MurrayThree editions all appeared within 1863 alone -- the first on 6 February, a second in April, and a third in November -- so the title page must be checked for an edition statement; a true first has none. Octavo, pp. xii, 520, with a frontispiece and a second plate at page 252, plus 58 woodcut illustrations and maps in the text. The second edition added a seven-page appendix that is entirely absent from the first…. London (Murray, 6 February 1863) precedes any American printing; George W. Childs of Philadelphia issued American editions the same year, including one explicitly marked 'Second American Edition.'. A much-revised fourth edition (John Murray, 1873, pp. 572, with an expanded subtitle covering glacial and post-Tertiary geology) followed a decade later and is explicitly marked 'Fourth Edition, revised' on the title page, unlike the unmarked first.

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