[NATURAL HISTORY]. WALLACE, Alfred Russel (1823-1913). Is Mars Habitable? London: Macmillan and Co., 1907.

8vo. 2 plates including frontispiece. Original green cloth gilt (a touch of rubbing at spine ends).

FIRST EDITION of Wallace's analysis and refutation of the Martian canal theory: "Mars is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings. but is absolutely uninhabitable" (p.110). Is Mars Habitable? "fully anticipated the anthropic principle and all but founded another study for which [Wallace] has been given but little credit: exobiology" (ODNB). 

Property from the Estate of Peter Fortsas