Charles Darwin's natural selection : being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is unquestionably one of the chief landmarks in biology. The Origin (as it is widely known) was literally only an abstract of the manuscript Darwin had originally intended to complete and publish as the formal presentation of his views on evolution. Compared with the Origin, his original long manuscript work on Natural Selection, which is presented here and made available for the first time in printed form, has more abundant examples and illustrations of Darwin's argument, plus an extensive citation of sources. Natural Selection is the manuscript on which Darwin based his landmark volume, On the Origin of Species.This edition, first published in 1975 and now available in paperback, presented, for the first time, the complete work; a formal and thorough presentation of Darwin's views on evolution. Compared with the Origin, the original long work on Natural Selection has more abundant examples and illustrations of Darwin's argument, plus an extensive citation of sources and references, which were totally absent from The Origin of Species. Professor Stauffer has edited Darwin's manuscript with meticulous care, without departing from Darwin's own words, to make the lengthy text as readable as possible, clarifying Darwin's source of citations and explaining the interrelationship of this work with other papers and published material. On October 8, 1856, Darwin wrote to his second cousin, W.D.Fox, that 'I...am now drawing up my work as perfect as my materials of nineteen years' collecting suffice, but do not intend to stop to perfect any line of investigation beyond current work...I find to my sorrow it will run to quite a big book.