Darwin's Origin of Species had 1,250 copies and no 'evolution'

The first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, published by John Murray on 24 November 1859, had a print run of only 1,250 copies, and 1,192 of those were available to buy. The word “evolution” does not appear anywhere in it. Darwin first used the word in the book in the sixth edition of 1872.

Supply was never going to match demand. At Murray’s trade sale on 22 November, booksellers ordered more than 250 copies beyond the stock on offer. Murray did not reprint. He asked Darwin to start on a new edition at once. On publication day Darwin wrote to Thomas Huxley:

“I have heard from Murray today that he sold whole Edition of my Book on first day, & he wants another instantly, which confounds me.” — Charles Darwin, 24 November 1859

So the famous “sold out in a day” story is roughly true, but the copies sold to booksellers before most readers could get one. That launch is covered in our page on the day Origin went on sale. The text then kept changing. Darwin revised it through five more English editions:

Edition	Year	What changed
1st	1859	1,250 printed, 1,192 for sale
2nd	1860	Mostly a reprint with small corrections; adds an endorsement from the clergyman Charles Kingsley
3rd	1861	Historical sketch enlarged to credit Patrick Matthew’s earlier anticipation
5th	1869	Adopts Herbert Spencer’s phrase “survival of the fittest”
6th	1872	3,000 copies, a cheaper ‘popular’ edition at 7s 6d; “evolution” appears for the first time

Many of the changes answered critics or letters from his correspondents. Darwin first saw Origin as a stop-gap. He had rushed it out after his and Wallace’s joint paper was read in 1858, and he still meant to finish his much longer “big book” on natural selection. He did not expect it to need updating at all. By the sixth edition he wanted a version cheap enough for a public “accustomed to novels for 1s”. Even 7s 6d struck him as too dear.