Which 1859 book by Charles Darwin presented evolution by natural selection to a wide audience?

Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species presented evolution by natural selection to a wide audience.

Its full first-edition title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin used evidence from domestication, fossils, biogeography, comparative anatomy, and living species to argue that populations change over generations.

The book did not introduce every idea associated with evolution. Earlier thinkers had proposed that species could change, and Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed natural selection. Darwin’s major contribution was a detailed, evidence-rich explanation of how inherited variation and differential survival could produce adaptation.

A common mix-up is confusing this book with The Descent of Man, published in 1871. The later work focused more directly on human evolution and sexual selection.