THE DEDICATION COPY INSCRIBED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY - Advice to a Young Scientist

Inscribed from one Nobel Prize winner to another - from Peter Medawar to his friend and Royal Society President Alexander Todd on the first flyleaf: ‘To Alex Todd who started all this by inviting me to give a Charles [C P] Snow Lecture at Christ’s. With all good wishes from Peter Medawar Nov. 1979’.

First edition in black publisher’s cloth, near fine in very good jacket, scuffing to lower panel. The printed dedication is ‘To the Royal Society of London’ - but there is no record of an inscribed copy in the society’s collections making this the dedication copy. Todd has made occasional annotations throughout the text, revealing the indentities of scientists mentioned, but not named, by Medawar.

Peter Medawar (1915-1987) is regarded as the ‘father of transplantation’ for which research work he won a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 as well as being remembered as ‘the wittiest of all scientific writers’ (Richard Dawkins). Alexander Todd (1907-1997) was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the synthesis of nucleotides - the hereditary material of cells. He was a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge - also the College of C P Snow, novelist and author of The Two Cultures, mentioned by Medawar - later serving as President of the Royal Society from 1975-1980. A superb association copy.