The Origin of Species (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Darwin [1]
We have used the first edition in preparing this volume. The work went through
six editions during Darwin’s lifetime; starting with the second edition, Darwin
removed “On” from the title.
Published in 2004 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biog-
raphy, Chronology, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading
Copyright @ 2004 by George Levine.
Note on Charles Darwin, The World of Charles Darwin and
The Origin of Species, and Comments & Questions
Copyright @ 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
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The Origin of Species
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-077-8 ISBN-10: 1-59308-077-8
eISBN : 978-1-411-43286-4
LC Control Number 2003109512
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Charles Darwin
Robert Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, on February 12, 1809, into a wealthy and highly respected family. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a doctor and the author of many works, including his well-known Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, which hinted at a theory of evolution. Charles’s father, Robert Waring Darwin, was also a prosperous doctor; his mother, Susannah, was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the renowned Wedgwood china factory. The Darwins and Wedgwoods had close and longstanding relations; Charles was to marry his cousin Emma Wedgwood.
In 1825, at age sixteen, Darwin matriculated at Edinburgh University to study medicine. It was at Edinburgh that he became interested in natural history, particularly crustaceans, sea creatures, and beetles. Deciding that medicine was not his vocation, he left Edinburgh in 1827 and entered Christ’s College, Cambridge University, to study theology. At Cambridge he became friends with J. S. Henslow, a scientifically inclined clergyman and professor of botany. Although Darwin was to graduate from Cambridge with a B.A. in theology, he spent a great deal of his time with Henslow, developing his interest in natural science. It was Henslow who secured a position for Darwin on an exploratory expedition aboard the HMS Beagle.
In December 1831, the year he graduated from Cambridge, Darwin embarked upon that five-year voyage to Africa and South America, acting as a companion to the captain, Robert Fitzroy. Cramped in his cabin and frequently seasick, Darwin nevertheless meticulously gathered specimens and wrote up his ideas. The materials he gathered would lead him to the idea of descent by modification through natural selection. It is conjectured that while in South America Darwin contracted Chagas’s disease, a tropical illness that became debilitating after the birth of his first child, William, in 1839, for the rest of his life. By the time Darwin returned to London in 1835, many of his letters to scientists, such as geologists Charles Lyell and Adam Sedgwick, had been read before scientific societies and Darwin was a well-known and respected naturalist.
Darwin’s first published work, an account of his voyage aboard the Beagle entitled Journal of Researches, appeared in 1839. He married the same year; soon after, the family moved to a secluded house at Down, in Kent, where Darwin continued his work toward a book that was to present his theory of evolution, but spent eight years preparing a detailed set of monographs on barnacles in preparation for the larger study.
In 1858, when Darwin was halfway through the writing of the book, naturalist A. R. Wallace sent him a paper