The Voyage of the Beagle  By  cover art

The Voyage of the Beagle

By: Charles Darwin
Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards

Editorial reviews

Barnaby Edwards narrates this lengthy, gorgeously detailed book. Racked with nausea and homesickness, novice surveyor Darwin still managed to thoughtfully and minutely detail his five-year voyage on the H. M. S. Beagle. During this long collection expedition Darwin began to formulate methods and ideas for defining life on Earth through the lens of the natural world. This quest would eventually yield Darwin the theory of evolution. Darwin’s youth, passion, braininess, and precise speech evidence themselves in this analytical but highly personal travelogue. Edwards lets the text do the talking, and through his refined English accent the listener is transported to the rough and wildly exotic terrains Darwin is exploring. Mirroring Darwin, Edwards sounds restrained and civilized but awed by the new worlds unfolding before him.

Publisher's summary

”I hate every wave of the ocean”, the seasick Charles Darwin wrote to his family during his five-year voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle. It was this world-wide journey, however, that launched the scientists career.

The Voyage of the Beagle is Darwin's fascinating account of his trip - of his biological and geological observations and collection activities, of his speculations about the causes and theories behind scientific phenomena, of his interactions with various native peoples, of his beautiful descriptions of the lands he visited, and of his amazing discoveries in the Galapagos archipelago.

Although scientific in nature, the literary quality rivals those of John Muir and Henry Thoreau. Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. Darwin published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.

By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.

Public Domain (P)2013 Audible Ltd

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High Adventure - Well Written

I did not know what to expect - I took a chance here. I think this book was edited to be a high adventure book - editing out just about all of the science and analysis of Darwin, and leaving us with the pure the adventure.

Surprisingly (for me), I think this book inspired all subsequent high-adventure novels that feature an intellectual hero. Darwin rode with South American cowboys (gaucho's and huaso's), South American indians, encountered native islanders, savages, thieves, post-revolution states, Spanish nobility (the Spanish had been there 300 years already), indian miners, indian guides, high plains, deserts, snowy mountain passes, wide rocky wastelands, jungles, insects, wild animals, storms, earthquakes (and he hadn’t even gotten to the Galapagos yet)…

I had envisioned a meek botanist not straying too far from the boat, but no – he still had his youthful spirit (I had to remind myself that he was still in his early twenties). His account was mainly deep-land travel oriented. For example, at one point, he had a choice – to sail with the ship 480 miles south from Valparaiso, Chile, to the next port, or go by land. He went by mule with a couple of Indian guides. Having found the coast insufficiently interesting, he then ventured high inland through the deserts and mountains of Chile, probably feeling it was his duty to widely explore (not to mention being up to the adventure).

What Darwin did was not only collect scientific data on geology, paleontology, meteorology, zoology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, botany, and any other branch of early science he could turn his attention to, he offered informed speculations whenever they hit him (in the effort to forward potentially-worthy hypotheses for future scientific investigation); and not only that – he collected anecdotes of the many various peoples he encountered (which contributed to the 'high adventure' aspect of the book). As for the informed speculations – he demonstrate the preferred (and enjoyable) method that early scientists tried to use – divining reality through pure deduction and reasoning (rather than pure empiricism) – that is, piecing together pieces of knowledge like scientific Sherlock Holmes’s putting together a puzzling case.

What was most curious for me (besides the unexpected high adventure) was his perspective – what did people know on the science front back in 1832? Darwin was well-educated and well-read by then, and he covered a lot of scientific ground - it appears that one was expected to be well-versed in all the branches of science back then, and he must have continued expanding his education and readings while writing the book. You can see his thoughts on evolution germinating here, aided by Lyell's book and the previous works and theories of others. Some of the terms and notions were curious (‘infusia’ was a good one that he leaned on many times - a blanket term for whatever was too small to see). It was entertaining to see him speculate on things that we know a lot more about today, such as the effects of glaciers and the nature of volcanoes.

This was one of the later editions, probably scaled back each time, since in several places he referred us to further scientific details in an ‘earlier edition’. I’m sure Darwin wanted to write a serious scientific journal, but I suspect the publisher noticed all the high adventure, and decided that it would make a good scaled-down book in itself (which it was).

The narrator had a fitting British accent, and handled the French footnotes and Spanish dialog well.

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Wonderful adventure, precious history

Lved it! Beautiful English, well written for any age. What an amazing adventure and he was ahead of his time in so many ways. Magnificent contribution to our knowledge.

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How to see the world

An excellent listen to a most perceptive and energetic traveler. Well read, beautifully written, and full of descriptions of the world in the 1830's. Darwin sees all, understands much, and draws understanding from everything around him.

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  • 04-28-17

Very worth the time spent

This was a very good book to listen to as it brought you to a time where things were remote but not as remote as you would tend to believe. Enjoyed the various descriptions of the peoples that they came across.

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Darwin's Adventure!

Every minute of the voyage was a new opportunity for insightful observation. All noted in meticulous detail. Anyone interested in Darwin's life will love you this book.

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Traveling with Darwin

I first read this book 4 decades ago, while an undergraduate student. Even though I studied a lot of biology, no wildlife or field. I've since become an amateur naturalist. As an addict of non fiction audible books, this was a NAT. It is awesome. It's almost like traveling with the man. I never doubted his genius and humanity. I've noticed that this book has been the inspiration for several famous biologists, e.g. Watson (Watson and Crick). Even though I'm no longer a neuroscience researcher, it remains most inspiring for continued local nature studies.

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Highly recommended.

An excellent reading of Darwin’s voyage (1831-1836), experiences and observations he recorded during his trip. Insightful with respect to what led to his theory of evolution. A foundational work regarding the history of science. Highly recommended. Easy to listen to.

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The Best Travelogue Ever

The great Carl Sagan once said, “What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you." That's what The Voyage of the Beagle felt like to me, spending 25 hours along side the greatest naturalist the world has ever seen, Charles Darwin, as he sailed around the world and examined the flora and fauna in the places the HMS Beagle landed. Darwin is at the top of my list of admired humans and it was just fantastic to take this historic trip with him, a trip that inspired the book that changed the world.

I listened to the audiobook which was expertly read by Barnaby Edwards. My only regret is that I did not listen to this prior to my August 2018 visit to his house, the Down House in Downe England. The second story of the house was made in to a museum and it featured many of the items Darwin brought back from his HMS Beagle exploration as well as a re-creation of his room on the Beagle complete with a hologram of the great man himself!

The Voyage of the Beagle covers the five year journey and Darwin gives a detailed account of the people and geography of each location visited in addition to the flora and fauna which you would expect a young naturalist (he was only 22 when the voyage started) to spend a lot of time studying. Many of the locations he visited were still relatively wild. Through his observations and discoveries you get the feel of how great a mind Darwin had. His writing is profound, and easily digestible by a layman such as myself.

He did much more exploration on horseback over land than I was aware of and he spent a significant amount of time exploring the South American continent which was being colonized by the Spanish. He spent time exploring a number of continent's islands, most noteworthy of which were the Galapagos. The accounts of the extermination and enslavement of native South Americans by the Spanish was shocking and disturbing. Much of his writings about the treatment of the natives and the fauna by the colonizers was depressing, and he went so far as to predict many of the native animal species and native humans would soon be extinct as the Europeans spread throughout the continent. He was correct.

Another interesting port of call was in Australia. His observations of its unique fauna and prediction of the future greatness of the continent were particularly interesting.

The book ends on a high note with Darwin eloquently summarizing his experience. This is after going on a rant about slavery after visiting Brazil for a second time after sailing around Africa. He recalls some of the inhumane scenes he witnessed on his journey and after setting sail from Brazil ("a land of moral debasement") vows to never again visit a slave country.

In short this was an utterly fascinating and enjoyable travelogue written by one of the greatest scientists to walk the planet. I will look for a nice hard copy of this book at a used bookstore as I would love to have this book lying around the house to revisit again and again.

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A must read

a must-read or anyone who wonders wonders how and why Earth and man ate!

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what an adventure

This book was a pleasant surprise. it was exciting to go along on the journey. Darwin was curious and enthusiastic. I would read this one again.

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