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On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Hardcover)

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4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

The Origin is one of the most important books ever published, and a knowledge of it should be a part of the intellectual equipment of every educated person...The book will endure in future ages so long as a knowledge of science persists in mankind. It remains to be said that the edition here reviewed is very worthily produced and contains a little-known picture of Darwin.
--W. L. Sumner (Nature )

This is a most valuable publication. In addition to the text of the first edition (1859) of the Origin with all the freshness and directness of the original, now here made available in facsimile, Professor Ernst Mayr of Harvard, a most distinguished writer in this field, has prefaced this reprint with an introduction that is in itself a classic. (Times Literary Supplement )

It was a very happy idea to publish a facsimile of the first edition of On the Origin of Species; the price of copies of the original edition has reached the thousand dollar bracket, and in contemporary literature all page-references are to the original pagination, which was not followed in previous reprints of the first edition. Now, with this very reasonably priced and beautifully produced book, not only historians of science but also biologists will have the opportunity of following the fascinating thought-trails, still far from fully explored, of that remarkable man Darwin. Few if any persons are so well qualified as Harvard's Ernst Mayr to execute so helpfully and gracefully the delicate task of writing a worthy foreword to such a classic.
--Sir Gavin de Beer (Science ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.


Product Description

A facsimile of the 1859 first edition of Charles Darwin's classic work, On the Origin of Species.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 516 pages
  • Publisher: Wildside Press (August 26, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592242863
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592242863
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #63,024 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
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128 of 138 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy THIS "Origin"!, June 3, 2000
This review is from: On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Harvard Paperbacks) (Paperback)
There is only one reason to read "On the Origin of Species" -- to discover how Darwin himself first articulated the most revolutionary scientific theory of all time. And to achieve this purpose there is only one means -- to read his original argument, set forth with the greatest force, clarity, and brevity in that very first edition published in 1859. So, unless you happen to have the $$$ to buy an actual first edition, this facsimile of the first edition is the *only* way to read Darwin: all other paperback "Origins" publish Darwin's latest edition.

But even if you are not interested in the history of biology (scoundrel!), and you think you'll learn complete evolutionary theory from the "Origin" (fool!), you should get this edition -- and *not* later ones. Darwin's later editions of the "Origin" contain many errors that are not found in the original edition, including especially a progressive weakening of his original argument (evolution by natural selection) by the importation of Lamarckism (evolution by the inheritance of acquired characters). In these later editions, Darwin had been convinced by blockhead, mystical *physicists* that his *geology* was wrong (as if!), so he had to speed up the timing of everything, which meant smuggling in Lamarckism.

Last, this volume contains an introduction from one of the most charming biologists and philosophers of all time -- Ernst Mayr. This intro alone is worth the price of the book.

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56 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A true classic in the field of biology, May 14, 1999
This review is from: On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Harvard Paperbacks) (Paperback)
A group of my students and I read this book this semester. During the discussion period for the final chapter, one of the students said, "I cried. This was the best book I have ever read." On the other hand, another student expressed great disappointment with the book. Another student quipped, "There weren't enough examples about pigeons." All in all, this book provides excellent food for thought today, just as it did 140 years ago when it was first published. I found Darwin's insights and synthesis of ideas, based on the accumulation of carefully collected observations combined with intellectual leaps to be inspiring. There are flaws in portions of the book to be sure, but this is a book that all biologists and biology students should have a chance to read and discuss. When you read it, make sure you read the entire book, discuss it with a friend or two as you read, and you can look forward to a perfect conclusion to this paradigm shifting book that continues to influence modern biological thought.
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35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Origin-al, January 7, 2003
By James R. Mccall (Libertyville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition (Harvard Paperbacks) (Paperback)
NOTE that this is a review of the Harvard University Press facsimile of the first edition of "On the Origin of Species" (intro by Ernst Mayr). This is NOT a commentary on Darwin's text.

I blithely bought and began reading the Modern Library's "Origin", then came across this facsimile of the first edition in the library. Hmm, I wondered. I used the quotations in the front of my copy to deduce that I was reading the sixth (and last) edition, rather than the first. While that, too, has its considerable interest in illustrating the twists and turns of Darwin's thought during those years, the evolution revolution was made by the first edition. As Ernst Mayr says in his introduction, "When we go back to the Origin, we want the version that stirred up the Western world, the first edition." Besides which, if one is going to do any historical research, one needs this edition, for contemporary references use the first edition's pagination.

But most importantly, this is the firstborn of Darwin's mind, long gestating, and contains his most confident and positive statement of his thesis. He had tried to anticipate all the major objections to his theory and answer them preemptively here. Still, at the time of this writing he had no critics, so the tone and content display none of that waffling that mar, to a certain extent, the final edition.

This volume was put together in 1964, and Ernst Mayr's introduction dates from that time. It is a good historical introduction to Darwin and his contribution, and some more specific remarks on the first edition, its general approach and some of its path-breaking arguments. Also included in the extra matter is a bibliography of Darwin's published works, plus current works on evolution, as of 1964. There is also a quite comprehensive index of the text, which should make the book considerably more usable to us than it was to Darwin's original readers.

My only gripe is that Harvard University Press only offers a paperback, although it used to have a hardcover edition. The paperback version is readable enough at 5.5 by 8.2 inches, yet it's too thick for its size, and, while definitely not of poor quality, vulnerable to the binding breakage typical of the breed, so serious scholars of the work might find themselves literally pulling it apart. For you and me, though, it should be just fine.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Why Buy This When So Many Better Options Exist?
This book is excellent because it contains the first edition of "On the Origin of Species," whether in facsimile or otherwise. Read more
Published 19 days ago by JMB1014

5.0 out of 5 stars Before Sagan and Dawkins, there was Charles Robert Darwin
Charles Darwin found his voice in this book. For all his tangled sentence structure and use of the passive voice, in the "Origin" his is a voice as one crying in the wilderness: a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Alan Canon

4.0 out of 5 stars simple copy
It's a simple copy of Darwin's work, with no frills. Good thick paper is about all I can say about it. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Sunny

1.0 out of 5 stars Are evolutionists racist?
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was the original title, making it easy to see what Darwin is... Read more
Published on October 16, 2007 by J. Cross

4.0 out of 5 stars A good facsimile of a great book
I rate this four stars for the binding, not the contents. For a much greater price one can get a finer binding, but if one wishes to read or review the 1859 edition that Darwin... Read more
Published on September 26, 2007 by Featherwood Kid, Gordon

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but the third edition is recommended
Charles Darwin rushed his Origin to press when he became aware that he would be pre-empted with the theory of natural selection by Alfred Russell Wallace. Read more
Published on December 26, 2005 by B. Rossen

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Accessible Scientific Masterpiece Ever Written
Many love to read science whether it is the newest technological innovations for high definition TV's or we expose to learn more about the unified field theory or String Theory... Read more
Published on December 20, 2005 by Serge Marinkovic MD

5.0 out of 5 stars Need to know for cultural literacy
This is a quick review of the book not a dissertation on Darwin or any other subject loosely related. At first I did not know what to expect. Read more
Published on May 3, 2005 by bernie

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
Tweaked my imagination and opened all kinds of doors. Our bookclub spent many hours hashing out ideas that this book explored. I put this on my recommend list.
Published on January 16, 2004 by Doug Elam

5.0 out of 5 stars Answer to "Some concepts should be revised and corrected"
Some idiot wrote a review of this book as if it were a contemporary scientific publication, as if Darwin were still alive to rewrite another edition! Read more
Published on November 2, 2003 by Cuvtixo

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