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Morse Peckham manuscript for variorum text of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts [Contact Us]3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a British naturalist, is credited with first formulating the theories of natural selection and evolution.
Morse Peckham was Director of the University of Pennsylvania Press from 1953 to 1955 and a prolific author. According to his introduction to this text, Peckham's purpose in producing this variorum text was to make it possible for historians and scientists to know what Darwin said in The Origin of Species at any given time; he cites the particular importance of Darwin's excision of theological language between the first edition and later editions, which may explain some if not all of the theological opposition to Darwin's theories. Peckham also emphasizes that this is a variorum text as opposed to a variorum edition, since the sources of Darwin's information were neither tracked down nor verified.
Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) The Origin of Species was published in six extensively edited editions. Over the course of this process, approximately 75% was rewritten between one and five times, and over 1,500 sentences were added, with the result that the sixth edition is nearly one third longer than the first. This collection contains a manuscript for the first variorum text of The Origin of Species, referred to by its editor as a "paste-script" due to the nature of its construction, which is the result of a collation process involving cutting and pasting sentences from six editions of Darwin's text.
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
- Finding Aid Author
- Molly B. Hutt
- Finding Aid Date
- 2015 May 26
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
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Copyright restrictions may exist. For most library holdings, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania do not hold copyright. It is the responsibility of the requester to seek permission from the holder of the copyright to reproduce material from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.