Book
"On the Origin of Species" is a scientific book by Charles Darwin published in 1859, in London, England. Charles Darwin was a British naturalist, biologist, and geologist, who studied at the University of Edinburgh and Christ’s College in Cambridge. In 1831, Darwin had joined a surveying voyage on the HMS Beagle which lasted about 5 years ending in 1836 (Desmond et al. 2015). Darwin spent most of his time on land collecting data on natural history such as fossils, bones, plants and animals. All while the HMS beagle surveyed the coasts. By the end of the journey, Darwin had accumulated 1750 pages of notes, a 770-page diary, 12 catalogues of skins, bones and carcasses, and many questions. In 1859 he published "On the Origin of Species" (Desmond 2020).
"On the Origin of Species" is a substantial work covering many topics and in great detail considering the period. The book is 14 chapters covering domesticated and natural variation, natural selection, laws in variation, instinct, hybridism, imperfections of the geological record, geological succession, geographical distribution, classification, morphology, embryology, and rudimentary organs (Darwin 1859). However, the theory of evolution became popular causing international controversy since many believed that the theory contradicted their beliefs in Creationism. Prompting bans and backlash from the public.
The theory of evolution is that living organisms evolved from common ancestors through natural selection. Natural selection is a process in which organisms adapt to their environment. Variability in populations allows individuals with a higher fitness to have reproductive advantages promoting the advantageous trait to stay in the population and cause speciation. The book is filled with observations he made from his journey on the HMS Beagle to support his theories. Darwin had also included insights into geological changes by studying layers of rocks and fossils.
The portrait of Darwin was gifted to the Linnean Society of London which is a society of scientists that Charles Darwin was elected to join in 1854. Darwin had a presentation at the Linnean Society venue in 1858 with Alfred Russel Wallace but neither of them went and instead, Darwin’s first public presentation of the theory of evolution was done by Lyell and Hooker (Cohen 1985). Afterwards, Darwin wrote an abstract for "On the Origin of Species" and published it. The painting was done in 1883 based on work from 1881. The painting was gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by William Darwin in 1896. Darwin died in 1882 and this painting was made for the Linnean society. The Linnean Society continues its research in evolution helping to give credibility to the book and ultimately increasing the acceptance of the theory of evolution among scientists around the world.
The book presented in the exhibit is a first edition copy of "On the Origin of Species" which successively belonged to Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin, Bernard Darwin, and Robin Darwin. According to a note written by Leonard Darwin on November 4th, 1927, this was the first copy of the book Charles Darwin received from his publishers in 1859. The book was published in London, England by John Murray in November 1859 and includes 32 pages of John Murray’s advertisements at the end of the book. The book is a 502 paged hardcover book made of paper. The book cover is cover with a green cloth gilded on the spine with blind-tooled binding on the front and back. The majority of the book’s pages have age-related damage which caused brown spots (foxing). The book is annotated by Charles Darwin and his annotations were added to later editions. The annotations consisted of deletions and insertions for clarification, fixing grammar and spelling mistakes, and sentence structure changes. The first and second editions are very similar with minimal changes which correspond to his superficial corrections in his annotations. The second edition was published 2 months after the publication of the first.
The book has 6 editions. Charles Darwin has annotated and made changes in each of the editions. A comparative study by Keipman concluded that there are significant changes between the first and sixth editions which correspond to external pressures put on Darwin. For example, in the 5th edition, Darwin began to emphasize non-selective forces causing changes in a species. Therefore public criticism had a direct impact on the book’s contents which had only occurred because the principles presented by the book had conflicted with the majority of society’s pre-existing beliefs. Other scientists had made objections and criticized some points which convinced Darwin to make adjustments (Keipman 1981).