In 1831 Charles Darwin had just come down from Cambridge, where he had made his mark far more as a sportsman than as a scholar, and where he himself felt that his time had been 'wasted, and more than wasted'. He was destined by his family for the church. But the offer of a place as naturalist on board HMS Beagle, shortly to sail on an Admiralty survey around the world, changed the direction of his life; and that change was to shake Victorian society to its roots when The Origin of Species was eventually published in 1859.
In later life he became a very sick and private man, living the life of a near-recluse; but the Darwin we meet in his own youthful writings is very different: vigorous, enthusiastic, warmly humanitarian, communicating in vivid, direct language his feelings of awe at the magnificence and multiplicity of nature and, above all, a sense of exhilarating adventure that is never dimmed by the miseries of sea- and home-sickness.
The Voyages of Charles Darwin for the first time presents a selection of Darwin's autobiographical writings in a single volume illustrating the events and scenes of that momentous journey. The sources are his Diary, the later Journal which is based on it, and the short Autobiography which his wife persuaded him to write for their children towards the end of his life. Throughout the voyage he pursued many lines of enquiry but, as this selection shows, it is possible to follow the growth and progress of the thought which was to lead to the theory of natural selection, against the framework of an absorbing adventure story. For viewers of the BBC2 dramatised reconstruction of the voyage it provides a commentary by the best possible guide - Darwin himself.
It's 1831, and 22-year-old Charles Darwin is selected as naturalist for HMS Beagle's survey voyage around the world.
In the Brazilian rain forests, Darwin decides to devote his life to science.
Round the Horn, and the first encounter with primitive man in a bitterly hostile environment.
A 500-mile journey across the Argentine pampas and on to the High Andes.
Tortoises and marine lizards on the Galapagos Islands provide Darwin the clue to the origin of species and the theory of natural selection.
Its 1836, and after five years of voyaging around the world, Darwin returns to England.
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