Molecular biology of the gene. (Carsten Bresch’s copy)

New York : W.A. Benjamin Inc., 1965. Octavo, white cloth with double-helix design on upper board, lettered on spine, illustrated dustjacket (corners bumped, edges rubbed, chipped and worn), pp. xxii, 494, with numerous diagrams, a couple of instances of highlighter underlining by Bresch, a very good copy.

The foundation book on molecular biology, written by Nobel Prize-winning biologist James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix in 1953. Watson’s work clarified the rapid discoveries into genes which had been made in the previous decade, unifying the disparate studies into a single discipline of molecular biology. The clear and instructive graphic illustrations by Keith Roberts clarified the writing of Watson and set a new standard for scientific textbook design. It remains one of the most read and studied textbooks of biology.

Provenance :

German geneticist and physicist Carsten Bresch (1921–2020), pioneer in the field of bacteriophage genetics, his ownership stamp to front free endpaper, dated Dallas Jan. 66.

Bresch authored the definitive textbook Klassische und molekulare Genetik (Classical and Molecular Genetics) alongside R. Hausmann. First published in the 1960s, it served as the standard curriculum work for generations of biology students. Bresch helped establish the Institute of Genetics in Cologne and later moved to the United States to head the newly established biology division at the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (now the University of Texas at Dallas) in 1964. He later returned to Germany as a professor of genetics at the University of Freiburg, where he founded the Institute for Biology III.