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54
19 TH CENTURY SHOP
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ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Darwin, Charles. ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by means of natural selection, or the
preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray, 1859.
Original green cloth. Inner hinges restored, minor wear. An excellent, bright copy.
130’000.–
FIRST EDITION of “certainly the greatest biological book ever written” (Freeman)
and “the most important single work in science” (Dibner).
Darwin’s theory of the origin of species by means of natural selection arose out of his
studies in the 1830s during and after the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Reading Malthus’s
Essay on Population in 1838, Darwin saw that the tendency of population to grow in
excess of food supply applied not just to man but to animals, and in it lay the germ
of natural selection. Darwin did not discuss his theory with friends, but in 1842 he
drew a rough sketch of his argument and expanded it in 1844. Then beginning in
1845 he put aside the matter and devoted eight years to the study of living and fossil
barnacles. In 1856 Darwin described his theory to geologist Charles Lyell, who urged
him to write a book on the subject. In June 1858 Alfred Russel Wallace sent Darwin
a letter presenting a summary of the very views Darwin had formed twenty years earlier.
The two agreed to a joint publication of their ideas.
In 1858 Darwin set about writing On the Origin of Species, which he considered an
“abstract” of a much larger work that was never published. The book was published
on November 24, 1859. Before its publication, Darwin wrote to John Murray, his
publisher, “It may be conceit, but I believe the subject will interest the public.” The
first edition of 1250 copies sold out immediately. Darwin concluded his book, “There
is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed
into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this plan has gone cycling on according to
the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and
most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
“Darwin not only not only drew an entirely new picture of the workings of organic
nature; he revolutionized our methods of thinking and our outlook on the order of natural
things. The recognition that constant change is the order of the universe had
finally been established” (PMM).
Printing and the Mind of Man 344b. Freeman 373.