JOHANSSEN, Wilhelm (1857-87). Elemente der Exakten Erblichkeitslehre.

JOHANSSEN, Wilhelm (1857-1927).  Elemente der Exakten Erblichkeitslehre. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1909. Large 8vo (230 x 160mm). Tables and diagrams. Contemporary half roan and marbled boards gilt (extremities rubbed). Provenance: Bibl. Col. Max. Ignat. Valkenb. (stamp on title); from the Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL TEXTBOOK ON GENETICS, whose author coined the word ‘gene’ in the present work to describe the Mendelian units of heredity in addition to the terms ‘phenotype’ (to mean the outward appearance of an individual) and ‘genotype’ (to mean its genetic traits). "Johannsen was one of the founders of the science of genetics. His view of the unit of heredity, to which he first gave the name 'gene' (1909), has survived the changes brought about by the discovery of the physical basis of heredity, first in the chromosomes and then more precisely in the structure of the nucleic acids" (DSB, VII, pp 113-115).