The Origin of Life
Contributors: Translation with annotations by Sergius Morgulis
Edition: Dover Publications paperback reprint, 1965
Publisher: The Macmillan Company
Published: 1938
Number of pages: 270
Subjects: Evolution; Biochemistry; Molecular Evolution
Genres: Non-fiction; Science (Biology)
First sentence: "The question of the origin of life, of its first appearance on Earth, still occupies the human mind, as it has done since the most remote antiquity."
Description: Written in 1937 by A. I. Oparin, Associate Director of the Biochemical Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science, this book, though now far behind our current advances, constitutes an early exposition of what would today be called molecular evolution.  As such, it offers insights into early tests of possible prebiotic pathways and reactions that might lead to the formation of complex organic molecules fully sixteen years before the famous Stanley Miller discharge experiments of 1953....  --  (An example from chapter five reads:  "...for instance, Holliday and Nuttingham have demonstrated in 1931 that methane, heated to 1000 degrees Celsius without any contact catalyst, changes to acetylene according to the equation...."  and  "...in the presence of a sufficient amount of water vapor, we have not merely the formation of unsaturated hydrocarbons but also of the oxidized hydroxy derivatives...")
Table of contents: title: Theories of Spontaneous Generation of Life; title: Theories of the Continuity of Life; title: Theories of the Origin of Life at Some Distant Period of the Earth's Existence; title: Primary Forms of Carbon and Nitrogen Compounds; title: Origin of Organic Substances - Primary Proteins