The Life of the Fly: With Which are Interspersed some Chapters of Autobiography

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1913. All of Fabre's essays on Diptera, in his usual chatty but factual style; with autobiographical and mathematical essays added to bring the volume up to the standard size of other volumes in Fabre's collected works, as published by Dodd. First American edition (first printing), with same date (1913) on title & copyright pages; the jacket, however, is a later issue, after 1922, with Detmold's famous dung beetle illustration, first published in 1921. The book itself also has more wear than you'd expect from a book constantly in a jacket. So either the original owner 'improved' it at some point, or, more likely, a publisher's rep came around bookstores swapping out the old plain jackets for ones with the sexy Detmold art from their new book, to improve sales of both. Further, the back of the jacket lists the complete Works, which Teixeira did not complete translating until 1922, and it notes the list price as $2.00, while earlier printings have a jacket price of $1.50 or $1.75. Hardcover, full brown cloth, gilt titling. Light wear to book, corners rubbed, dent to top edge of front cover; jacket lightly rubbed with short tears, minor discoloration to lower spine where a small label was removed, tape stains inside jacket at the head of the spine, showing through a little; large book plate of Milwaukee Red Cross Major Edouard de Surentin inside front cover; stain to margins of pages 130/131, affecting adjacent pages. Text otherwise clean; 477 pages; index.. First American Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Duodecimo.