On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

Jan 2018 · First Avenue Editions ™

About this ebook

In 1831 British naturalist Charles Darwin joined a five-year expedition on the ship HMS Beagle. As the crew explored the southern hemisphere, Darwin took extensive notes on the organisms he encountered and how they differed from the species back home in England. He began to formulate ideas about the effect of natural selection on the evolution of species over time. The evidence he gathered, especially finch specimens collected from South America and the Galápagos Islands, provided further proof for his theory. In 1859, more than twenty years later, Darwin published his research—and sparked a heated debate. Misunderstood by theologians and misappropriated by eugenicists, it would be years before Darwin's controversial theory gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community. This is an unabridged version of Charles Darwin's fundamental text on evolutionary biology.

About the author

Charles Robert Darwin, born in 1809, was an English naturalist who founded the theory of Darwinism, the belief in evolution as determined by natural selection. Although Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and then studied at Cambridge University to become a minister, he had been interested in natural history all his life. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a noted English poet, physician, and botanist who was interested in evolutionary development. Darwin's works have had an incalculable effect on all aspects of the modern thought. Darwin's most famous and influential work, On the Origin of Species, provoked immediate controversy. Darwin's other books include Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Charles Darwin died in 1882.