Charles Darwin

'can we doubt ... that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind?' In the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply held beliefs of the Western world. His insistence on the immense length of the past and on the abundance of life-forms, present and extinct, dislodged man from his central position in creation and called into question the role of the Creator. He showed that new species are achieved by natural selection, and that absence of plan is an inherent part of the evolutionary process. Darwin's prodigious reading, experimentation, and observations on his travels fed into his great work, which draws on material from the Galapagos Islands to rural Staffordshire, from English back gardens to colonial encounters. The present edition provides a detailed and accessible discussion of his theories and adds an account of the immediate responses to the book on publication. The resistances as well as the enthusiasms of the first readers cast light on recent controversies, particularly concerning questions of design and descent. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Charles Darwin depended on correspondence to collect data from all over the world, and to discuss his emerging ideas with scientific colleagues, many of whom he never met in person. In January of 1868, Darwin's Variation Under Domestication was published. The first printing of 1500 copies rapidly sold out and the publisher, John Murray, ordered a second printing. Responses to this new book, added to Darwin's continuing research into sexual selection and the expression of the emotions, increased the quantity of Darwin's correspondence to such an extent that the letters from 1868 fill two volumes. The letters he wrote and received during this year are presented here in chronological order across two volumes, with notes and appendices to put them into context, explain references, and provide information on related works. For information on the Charles Darwin Correspondence Project, see http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk.

The most accessible edition ever published of Darwin's incendiary classic, edited by "as fine a science essayist as we have" (New York Times) The Descent of Man, Darwin's second landmark work on evolutionary theory (following The Origin of the Species), marked a turning point in the history of science with its modern vision of human nature as the product of evolution. Darwin argued that the noblest features of humans, such as language and morality, were the result of the same natural processes that produced iris petals and scorpion tails. To convey the revolutionary importance of this groundbreaking book, renowned evolutionary science writer Carl Zimmer edited this special abridged edition—made up of nine excerpts, each one representing one of Darwin's major themes—and wrote illuminating introductions to each section, as well as an overall introduction. Zimmer brilliantly places Darwin's basic ideas in the context of the current understanding of human nature and twenty-first-century DNA research. By accessibly presenting Darwin's thinking to a modern readership, Zimmer eloquently demonstrates Darwin's ever-increasing relevance and amazing scientific insight.