On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1873 Third American Edition)

An important early American edition of Charles Darwin’s landmark work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Published in New York by D. Appleton and Company in 1873, this is the Third American Edition, produced from the sixth English edition with Darwin’s additions and corrections. The sixth edition represents Darwin’s final major revision of Origin, incorporating numerous changes to the text and introducing the term “evolution” into the book.

Bound in the original red-brown publisher’s cloth with black ornamental decoration and borders to the boards and gilt lettering to the spine. The binding shows expected age and use, including rubbing, bumped corners, and wear and fraying at the head and foot of the spine, while the gilt spine lettering remains strong and attractive. Pages show general age toning with occasional spotting and foxing, but the interior presents well for a book more than 150 years old.

First published in 1859, On the Origin of Species fundamentally changed the biological sciences through Darwin’s argument for evolution by natural selection and remains one of the most consequential scientific books ever published. This 1873 Appleton edition is an especially desirable 19th-century American printing because it incorporates Darwin’s mature, substantially revised text rather than the text of the earliest editions.