The Voyage of the Beagle Paperback – January 19, 2012

As a life-long professional wildlife biologist, I found ' The Voyage of the Beagle' to be a fascinating read. Darwin, the quintessential observer & collector of all things natural, writes in an easy-to-read, travelogue style, while at the same time casting a dispassionate eye on the planet's geology, flora & fauna. Also, I especially enjoyed the book because many years ago I acquired a very nice original oil painting of the Beagle plying its way through the Straight of Magellan, a work which has given me much pleasure over the years.

I must admit that I was quite surprised that I enjoyed this book as much as I did. Having no preconceived notions, I choose this book as part of a reading challenge and was very impressed with Darwin's descriptions of his travels and also his disdain of slavery and the mistreatment of slaves in the countries he visited. Excellent observations not just of flora and fauna but of man's influence on nature.

Zero formatting went into this edition of Darwin's "Voyage." I thought I was purchasing a cheap edition from a company like Wadsworth or Penguin, but this turned out to be someone digitizing a copy without formatting. If you look at the picture of the text I uploaded, the font size might be 8 or less with no spacing between the sentences. It's almost impossible to read.

A classic adventure story that led to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. Our understand of life and biology has completely changed and continues to change as a result of this adventure and Darwin'sbrilliance. A must read. The illustrations supplement the text bringing it alive.

Outstanding historical record. Very interesting and well written. Provides a good primer to understand how Darwin arrived at his Theory ofEvolution. For travelers to South America it provides a good comparison to current geopolitical conditions and those that existed at that time.He spends a good part of the book describing the social and political situations that existed and not just his observations of the natural worldas you would expect.

I was surprised at how easy this is to read! I was particularly interested in Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, having just returned from a trip to that area. Also, I am reading another book about the area, "The Uttermost Part of the Earth", written by a man born there in the mid 1800s, son of a missionary. It has been interesting, reading teh books together, because both authors share many experiences, but with often differing opinions. Darwin's descriptions of the geography and the wildlife are wonderful. My one complaint (and it's a big one) is that this is supposed to be the "Illustrated Edition" and there is not one illustration in the e-book. Still, I have really enjoyed the book, and encourage others to try it.

This is my 2nd favorite book by Charles Darwin, because he tells the story of that great circumnavigation that he did as a young man, at a time when most of South America was still wild.What he saw, probably a first-of-a-kind voyage for any human being, made his conclusions, as told in 'Origin..' unavoidable, of course.But I just like to imagine what it was like for a very young man to embark on what was certainly a perilous voyage that would have him traverse Cape Horn multiple times.Truly a remarkable book and highly recommended.

The copy I purchased was an older copy....from the 1930's I think. The good news was that it is basically unedited.Charles Darwin, especially in Voyage of the Beagle, discusses Christianity quite a bit and refers to one of his mountain-top experiences as a nature version of Handel's Messiah. Most of the later editions edit out his comments on religion and basically re-write history by doing so.Dr. Darrell D. BarnesScience teacher at NWCC-DeSoto

I used this product to read! I have read, or attempted to read, several pages. In my ignorance I found they were atrocious 'gobbledegook'!Was the home-language of the typer or translator Spanish?This is without doubt the worst offering from Amazon I have encountered. Perhaps I ordered it on April st which might explain the result. It is only a joke!!!Incidentally, I have tried several times over the last few days to find out how to delete some versions of a TV programme: Waking the Dead, which I had downloaded to my home TV set.Can you help?The cost of 'Voyage of the Beagle' was only about 3 pounds sterling but I would prefer an English version of the book.YoursWilliam Godfrey

I recently wrote about having read "The Voyage of the Beagle", and "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin and asked questions originating from the latter.However, `the Voyage of the Beagle' is by far the more enjoyable and informative and contains many insights and readable prose. Something must have happened to Darwin after his wonderful five year journey around the world.I have rarely read two so very different books inn style and attitude by the same author. Indeed, any examination of Darwin's portrait either in sketches, painting or photograph reveals a man not only profoundly ageing but acquiring an expression of increasing gloom. Of course, one might think, as I did, that this was the nature of Victorian Man, at least in terms of a man living in Victorian society.That society would contrast sharply with the liberal ideas today but then I noticed that Darwin himself had commented on his glum expression saying that people might expect such a man to have few friends. Even his wife, from the few pictures available, appears to have prematurely aged.Nevertheless, I was struck by the descent of this man into what appeared on view a somewhat morose looking figure. That Darwin's health declined is a well known fact and some suspect that his illness which continued for the rest of his life had origins in his emotional state of mind and therefore sychosomatic.The Beagle followed a course of exploration which provided Darwin with an opportunity to explore and examine fauna and flora along much of the South American coastline including that of the nearby Falkland Islands and later, of course, his observations on the world famous ground-breaking observations in the Galapagos Islands, for example, two types of Galapagos Lizard; one terrestrial and the other aquatic. He writes:"I threw one several times as far as I could, into a deep pool left by the retiring tide; but it invariably returned in a direct line to the spot where I stood."The Beagle sailed farther on to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and other islands including Saint Helena in the South Atlantic before, finally, arriving at Falmouth, England and a new beginning in scientific speculation.

This is a note about the Mobilereference edition of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. It goes without saying that the book itself is one of the greatest books of travel that you could possibly read. The mobilereference edition of the book is just what I hoped books would be like on Kindle. There are books out there, as Kindle owners will know, that are badly formatted and almost impossible to find your way around. This is not one of them. Not only are you able to go directly to any chapter from the table of contents but there is also a fully useable index that allows you to look up references to people, places and other subject matter and go from that directly to the page concerned. If I had a quibble it would be that the illustrations do not seem to be indexed but that is a small matter and I would recommend this edition wholeheartedly.

This Audio book deserves 5 stars without effort, The narration and reading by Richard Dawking is simply superb.Richard Dawking really brings this amazing travel journal by Charles Darwin of his journey to the Galapogos Islands come to live.I bought the audio book to listen in the car for my long journeys to and from work, but like any fascinating good book, I could not put it down, but hungered for the next episode of this book.Since then I have listend to this audio book 5 times and every time it is as magical as the first time. Charles Darwins description of his journey is so vivid, that one can imagine being there and this is helped by Richard Dawkings magnificant reading.This is a fabulous book, by a fabulous author and genius, read by an amazing scientist and devotee of Darwin, Richard Dawking.I can highly recommend this.

I was not expecting this book of Darwin's to be so riveting a read! At points it is positively exciting !! His description of the aftermath of what was clearly a Tsunami following on from an earthquake is delicious to read in the context of what we now know of the phenomena. The young Darwin shows a keen interest not only in natural history and geology but also in the life of the indigenous populations of S. America and seems surprisingly 'modern' in most of his comments. Just a jolly good read as well as a look at the early thinking of the man who was to reshape our world view. If you're an intellectually curious person, willing to venture far afield in your reading, this is a must for you.