The Voyage of the Beagle
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1839
- Language
- English
- Length
- Long · 430 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Voyage of the BeaglePenguin Classics, 1989Janet Browne and Michael Neve's edition of the 1839 text, with maps and notes.
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Darwin's account of his five years as naturalist aboard HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836, worked up from his diary. It follows the ship around South America, with long inland expeditions across the pampas and the Andes, then to the Galápagos, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia and home. Geology, fossils, finches, tortoises, gauchos, slavery, earthquakes and the people of Tierra del Fuego are all described by a young man of twenty-two who does not yet know what he will make of them.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Voyage of the Beagle are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.

