Charles Darwin First Editions

• Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle (The Voyage of the Beagle) — 1839 · Henry ColburnDarwin's account first appeared in May 1839 as Volume III ('Journal and Remarks') of the composite four-volume Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle; Colburn then reissued the same setting of type under Darwin's own title, Journal of Researches, adding a new half-title and title leaf and sixteen pages of Colburn's publisher's advertisements dated August 1839 at the rear. The sheets are…. The composite Narrative, with Darwin's text as Volume III ('Journal and Remarks'), was issued as a set by May 1839; the separately-titled Journal of Researches, with new preliminary leaves and advertisements dated August 1839, reissues the same first-edition sheets under Darwin's own title and is technically the second issue rather than a new edition. A third issue, with the half-title and title leaf reprinted…. The heavily revised second edition (John Murray, 1845, issued in three parts as volume 12 of the Colonial and Home Library) reverses the title's word order to 'Natural History and Geology' rather than the first edition's 'Geology and Natural History,' omits both folding maps (which did not return until 1890), and cuts the text from about 224,000 to roughly 213,000 words; any copy with the reversed title wording….
• The Voyage of the Beagle (Journal of Researches) — 1839 · Henry ColburnDarwin's narrative first appeared in May 1839 as volume III ('Journal and Remarks') of Captain FitzRoy's Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle, issued in three volumes plus an appendix to volume II. Owing to its outsized popularity, Colburn reissued it separately that August using the same printed text sheets, with the preliminary leaves cancelled and reset and a new title page reading…. The text first appeared, chronologically, as part of the 1839 Narrative in London before any American printing; the substantially rewritten 'second edition,' retitled Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology... and issued by John Murray in 1845 in the Colonial and Home Library, is a later, different edition, not the first.
• On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection — 1859 · John MurrayFirst edition, John Murray, London, 24 November 1859: 1,250 copies printed (1,192 offered for sale). THE diagnostic point (Freeman) is the verso of the half-title leaf, which carries only two quotations -- from Whewell and Bacon; a third quotation, from Butler's 'Analogy,' was added only in the 1860 second edition. Supporting first-edition readings that Darwin later altered include the misprint 'speceies' for…. The true first is the 1859 London John Murray first edition. The 1860 New York (D. Appleton) printing is the first American edition, not the first overall. The point that separates the 1859 first from the 1860 second edition is the half-title verso: two quotations (Whewell, Bacon) in the first, three (the Butler quotation added) in the second. There is effectively a single issue of the 1859 first edition; the…. Numerous later facsimiles and photo-reprints exist (e.g., the Harvard facsimile edition) and carry later imprints or explicit facsimile statements. A genuine 1859 first is identified by the 1859 title-page date together with the two-quotation half-title verso; the 'speceies' misprint and the June 1859 Murray ads are corroborating, not decisive, and neither the ads' presence nor the misprint alone proves a first.
• The Fertilisation of Orchids — 1862 · John MurrayFirst edition (Freeman 800), published 15 May 1862 under the full title On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. Collates vi, 365, [1] pages, illustrated with one folding plate (Figure I) and 33 wood-engraved text figures (II-XXXIV). The earliest state (Freeman's variant 'a') is bound in vertically lined plum cloth and…. The heavily revised second edition (1877) shortens the title to The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, dropping the opening 'On,' 'British and Foreign,' and the closing clause on intercrossing, and incorporates new material including additions drawn from Darwin's 1869 French edition; it is a different, later text, not a reprint of the 1862 book.
• The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — 1868 · John MurrayFirst edition, first issue, of which 1,500 copies were published on 30 January 1868 in two octavo volumes. Volume I is paginated [3], iv-viii, 411, (32); volume II is paginated [3], iv-viii, 486, (2); both are illustrated with 43 wood-engraved text figures. First-issue points include a one-line publisher's imprint reading 'LONDON, JOHN MURRAY.' at the foot of each spine (two lines in the second issue); volume I…. The revised second edition (1875) is reduced to crown octavo, extensively alters the text (including reworked chapters on bud-variation and pangenesis), and reads 'Second Edition, Revised' on the title page.
• The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex — 1871 · John MurrayFirst edition, first issue (Freeman 937), of which 2,500 copies were published in two volumes on 24 February 1871. First-issue text has 'transmitted' as the first word on page 297 of volume 1 (reset to 'When' in the second issue), errata for both volumes printed on the verso of the volume 2 title leaf, and a tipped-in 'Postscript' leaf at pages [ix]-x of volume 2 in which Darwin acknowledges 'a serious and…. London (Murray, 24 February 1871) precedes the New York (D. Appleton) edition, which followed later the same year. Murray's revised 'Second Edition' (1874) resets the text as a single volume in three parts and drops the errata leaf and Postscript leaf specific to the 1871 text; cheaper reprints from the 1880s-the printed price onward are in plainer cloth without the January 1871 catalogues.
• The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals — 1872 · John MurrayFirst edition, first issue (Freeman 1142), collating vi, 374, [4] pages of publisher's advertisements dated November 1872, from an edition of 7,000 copies published 26 November 1872. Illustrated with 7 heliotype photographic plates (the first, second, and sixth folding) plus numerous wood-engraved text figures. The first issue lacks the misprint 'htat' for 'that' on the first line of page 208; Murray's second…. The 1890 second edition, edited posthumously by Francis Darwin, adds notes Charles Darwin had accumulated but not used in his lifetime, plus Francis's own bracketed footnotes; resettings dated 1901 and 1905 are textually unchanged from 1890 but are not the 1872 first-edition text.
• Insectivorous Plants — 1875 · John MurrayPublished 2 July 1875, octavo, x, 462 pages, illustrated with wood-engravings drawn in part by Darwin's sons George and Francis Darwin. The first-issue ('first thousand') state carries no thousand-notation on the title page and no publisher's advertisements bound in, while Murray's second and third thousands, both issued later the same year, state their thousand on the title page. The second thousand carries a…. The London Murray edition of 2 July 1875 precedes the American edition issued by D. Appleton and Company of New York later the same year, which was printed from stereotype plates of the English setting.
• The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms — 1881 · John MurrayDarwin's last book, published 10 October 1881, collating [ii], viii, 326 pages (the index included within that pagination) plus 2 pages of publisher's advertisements, with 15 text illustrations. Because of brisk demand Murray printed a 'second thousand' from the same setting of type almost immediately, adding only the words 'Second Thousand' to the title page; the unmarked first-thousand state and the…. Any title page reading 'Fifth Thousand' or higher, or bearing the phrase 'corrected, and with textual changes,' is a revised later printing rather than the original October 1881 text.

More Nonfiction & Memoir shelves: Charles Lyell, Daniel Defoe, Dava Sobel, Dave Eggers, David Hume, David McCullough.

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