Isabella L. Bird (1831-1904) records a visit to a bookshop in Japan in the 1870s in Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An account of Travels on Horseback in the interior including visits to the aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Ise, in which she writes about her conversation with a bookseller:
“He has translations of some of the works of Huxley, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer, which he says, are bought by the young men attending the higher school.
“The Origin of the Species has the largest sale. This man asked me many questions about the publishing and bookselling trade in England, and Ito acquitted himself admirably as an interpreter.
“He had not a single book on any subject connected with religion”.
Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) On the Origin of Species was published on 24 November 1859 by John Murray, seventeen years before Bird, a British explorer and travel writer, arrived in Japan.
In 1870s Japan Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’ was popular amongst young male students
[UPDATED: 9-3-2026]
© Red Circle Authors Limited
In 1870s Japan Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’ was popular amongst young male students
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