the origin of species by natural selection

11 However, that is not how Darwin himself referred to them. 8 Janet Browne's account is longer but, as will be explained below, inaccurate:įrancis Darwin called the two sketches of his father's theory of evolution of the early 1840s (18) ‘essays’. It had slimmed down to On the Origin of Species and Varieties by Means of Natural Selection, when Darwin improved matters more by docking “and Varieties”’.

7 One page later, they add that Darwin's title ‘continued to evolve under Murray's selective pressure. Desmond and Moore merely point out that Darwin's publisher, John Murray, being a practical man, was ‘more concerned with the title’ (than with the orthodoxy of Darwin's theory). Much the same can be said about the title of The Origin: even the most careful biographies do not give a complete account of its convoluted genesis. 4 As Johnson points out, ‘Somewhat surprisingly, little systematic attention has been paid to the Historical Sketch in the literature, as far as I can tell.’ 5 Even the most careful biographies ‘say little about the genesis and various transformations of and motivations for the Sketch’. 3 Such an overview could not only greatly help scholars in their research of classic topics in the study of Darwin, but might also allow them to identify topics that have not yet received much systematic attention, such as the ‘Historical sketch’ that was added to the third English edition of The Origin (1861). 2 However, whereas there exist excellent online resources about Darwin's work, an encyclopaedic and systematic online overview of the huge literature that the Darwin industry has produced and still is producing on Darwin's life, background, work and influence is sorely lacking.

Since the emergence of a Darwin industry, in the wake of the 1959 commemoration of the centennial of the publication of On the Origin of Species, analyses and reviews of this flourishing field of study have been published on a regular basis.

The origin of species by natural selection