On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, credited to Charles Darwin, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

Librivox recording of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, by Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (publ. 1859) is a pivotal work in scientific literature and arguably the pivotal work in evolutionary biology. The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It was controversial because it contradicted religious beliefs which underlay the then current theories of biology. Darwin's book was the culmination of evidence he had accumulated on the voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and added to through continuing investigations and experiments since his return. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
• Author credits: Charles Darwin
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 28
• Listed recording duration: 24:22:37

Catalogue topics

• nature
• science
• animals
• evolution
• natural selection

Opening tracks: first 24 of 28

1. 01A: Variation Under Domestication - Part 1 — 49:24
2. 01B: Variation Under Domestication - Part 2 — 57:47
3. 02: Variation Under Nature — 53:49
4. 03: Struggle for Existence — 38:58
5. 04A: Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest - Part 1 — 56:31
6. 04B: Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest - Part 2 — 55:16
7. 04C: Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest - Part 3 — 58:30
8. 05: Laws of Variation — 1:39:59
9. 06A: Difficulties of the Theory - Part 1 — 47:30
10. 06B: Difficulties of the Theory - Part 2 — 53:52
11. 07A: Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection - Part 1 — 59:42
12. 07B: Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection - Part 2 — 1:00:41
13. 08A: Instinct - Part 1 — 40:06
14. 08B: Instinct - Part 2 — 33:09
15. 08C: Instinct - Part 3 — 20:35
16. 09A: Hybridism - Part 1 — 42:44
17. 09B: Hybridism - Part 2 — 57:10
18. 10A: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record - Part 1 — 31:48
19. 10B: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record - Part 2 — 41:32
20. 11A: On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings - Part 1 — 43:59
21. 11B: On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings - Part 2 — 51:14
22. 12A: Geographical Distribution - Part 1 — 47:41
23. 12B: Geographical Distribution - Part 1 — 40:31
24. 13: Geographical Distribution - Continued — 1:01:16

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.