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´The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus.´ It is a selection of Darwin´s extraordinary adventures during the voyage of the Beagle. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin´s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries.
They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

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´The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus´

A selection of Darwin´s extraordinary adventures during the voyage of the Beagle

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin´s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin´s Autobiographies, On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and The Voyage of the Beagle are available in Penguin Classics.

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Charles Darwin, a Victorian scientist and naturalist, has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. Born in 1809 to an upper-middle-class medical family, he was destined for a career in either medicine or the Anglican Church. However, he never completed his medical education and his future changed entirely in 1831 when he joined HMS Beagle as a self-financing, independent naturalist. On returning to England in 1836 he began to write up his theories and observations which culminated in a series of books, most famously On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, where he challenged and contradicted contemporary biological and religious beliefs with two decades worth of scientific investigation and theory. Darwin´s theory of natural selection is now the most widely accepted scientific model of how species evolve. He died in 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

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