Editor’s Note

This is the text of the first edition of 1859, the book as Darwin first put it before the public, and the edition from which our Korean translation was made. Darwin revised the book through six editions, ending in 1872; the later editions answer critics, add qualifications, adopt Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest,” and drop the “On” from the title. None of that is here. The word evolution does not occur in the first edition; evolved occurs once, as the last word of the book.

Each chapter keeps the summary of contents that Darwin printed under its title. Chapter headings have been set in title case rather than capitals. Spelling and punctuation are those of 1859 (favourable, organisation). One misprint has been corrected: “phyllodineous acaceas” for acacias in Chapter XIII. The genus name Polyerges in Chapter VII is left as Darwin printed it.

Removed from the source: the transcription’s header and license, its table of contents, and the index, whose page references belong to the printed book. The first edition’s single diagram (the branching tree in Chapter IV) is not reproduced; Darwin describes it fully in the text.