"A colorful and lively account of this history-making scientific adventure."--Kirkus Reviews When Charles Darwin, then age 22, first saw the HMS Beagle, he thought it looked "more like a wreck than a vessel commissioned to go round the world." But travel around the world it did, taking Darwin to South America, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and of course the Galapagos Islands, in a journey of discovery that lasted almost five years. Now, in Fossils, Finches and Fuegians, Richard Keynes, Darwin's great grandson, offers the first modern full-length account of Darwin's epoch-making expedition....

Here is a fascinating record of one of the most famous journeys ever made. This work constitutes an accurate historical document as well as an evocative travelog that conveys Charles Darwin's personal account of the voyage with freshness and immediacy.

This 1979 volume gathers together an account of the voyage of HMS Beagle round the world in 1831 6, taken from the letters of Darwin and Fitzroy, Darwin's diary, and the books about the voyage published by Darwin and FitzRoy in 1839. It is illustrated by the pencil drawings and watercolours made by the Beagle's official artist, Conrad Martens, but pictures made on board by other members of the crew are also included. The bulk of the illustrations were previously unpublished, as were the letters written by Captain FitzRoy and Conrad Martens. Most of the other written sources were out of print....