Book, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces

This 6 by 9-inch book, set in Century Schoolbook 9.75-point type, is a print version of Ben Fry’s visualization project, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces. Fry’s project traces Darwin’s revisions to his seminal text, On the Origin of Species, as it evolved over six editions. The 150,000-word text of the first English edition appears in gray. Each edition’s changes are color-coded, illustrating Darwin’s refinements and updated ideas to his treatise. New text from the second edition is red. The third edition’s changes are green, and the fourth edition’s changes are orange. Changes to the fifth edition are blue. The sixth and final edition’s changes are green and reveal a newly added chapter. By the end, Darwin’s text has grown to more than 190,000 words.

Thumbing through the color-coded book allows users to see where edits and additions were made. In this single volume, we see Darwin tweaking, refining, shifting, and clarifying his ideas over the course of six editions, which spanned fourteen years of his life and illustrates the evolution of this foundational scientific theory.

On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces was originally created as an interactive visualization and later developed into a book. The data set for Fry’s project is drawn from Dr. John Van Wyhe’s “The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online” (http://darwin-online.org.uk/). The hardcover book is printed on demand in full color.

Book, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces; Designed by Ben Fry (American, b. 1975); book; H x W: 22.9 × 15.2 cm (9 × 6 in.); Gift of Ben Fry; 2017-11-1-b