- Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species. John Murray, 1859.
The world-famous book introducing the theory of evolution, based on Darwin’s observations from his trip on the Beagle.
- R. Dawkins. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
A pop-science classic, promoting neo-Darwinism as a synthesis of evolution with modern genetics. Its very gene-centric view of evolution, has been questioned by some.
- J.Maynard-Smith. The Evolution of Sex. Cambridge University Press, 1978.
A good, readable introduction to the biological basics of reproduction in haploid and diploid organisms.
- S.Wright. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, cross-breeding, and selection in evolution. In: Proc. of 6th Int. Congress on Genetics, vol.1, pp. 356–366. Ithaca, NY, 1932.
The paper introducing the idea of the adaptive landscapes.
- D.B. Fogel, ed. Evolutionary Computation: the Fossil Record. IEEE Press, 1998.
Fascinating collection of early works in the field, interesting not just for historical insight.
- S.A. Kauffman. Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993.
Offers a different perspective on the processes that led to the origins of life.
The on-line accompaniment to the book Introduction to Evolutionary Computing