To the Edge of the World
Book 1
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
Available in three separate volumes, To the Edge of the World is a seafaring adventure in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian. Harry Thompson shows how the modern world was born, not in a laboratory, but on a storm-beset ship and out of a welter of ignorance, heroism and tragedy. His novel charters the lives of Captain Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, their friendship, and the historical voyage that ultimately drove them apart.
In 1831, FitzRoy and Darwin - a Christian Tory and a liberal naturalist - board the HMS Beagle and set sail for Tierra del Fuego. As they travel around the world, exploring the coasts of Patagonia and surveying the Galapagos Islands, the two men forge a lifelong bond while debating morality, nationality, biology, fate, and religion. And as Darwin formulates his theory of evolution, their friendship is fast overshadowed by their differences as Darwin destroys everything FitzRoy stands for.
Book one of the trilogy follows Robert FitzRoy and his ship, the Beagle, on its surveying expeditions to the southern tip of South America. It introduces the 'soon to be famous' passenger, Charles Darwin.
First published in 2005 in the UK as This Thing of Darkness, this book is was one of "the best novels of 2006" in the USA.
"Perhaps the best historical novel I have read... A stunning achievement of imagination and story-telling. In this novel Harry Thompson shows how the modern world was born, not in a laboratory, but on a storm-beset ship and out of a welter of ignorance, heroism and tragedy. A masterpiece."
- Bernard Cornwell, author of The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, and the Richard Sharpe series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Published last year in the U.K. under the title This Thing of Darkness and shortlisted for the Man Booker, this is the first novel from Thompson, a British producer (Da Ali G Show) and travel journalist, who died of cancer last year at 46. Flag Lt. Robert FitzRoy, a Scots nobleman and prodigy, took command of the H.M.S. Beagle at 23; three years later, in the fall of 1831, he took on Charles Darwin, then 22 and a naturalist (and also a patrician), as geologist for the ship's Royal survey of lower South America, the Gal pagos and Falklands. By then, Darwin, studying for the clergy, has already altered his life studies three times; FitzRoy is an unbending Christian. The voyage lasts five years, and their friendship develops alongside Darwin's radical theory, with FitzRoy providing an able foil for the younger man's philosophical flights. All is well when Darwin publishes The Voyage of the Beagle in 1839 to acclaim, but when, after nearly 30 years and innumerable conversations, Darwin publishes the godless The Origin of Species to great fanfare, the friendship ends, leaving FitzRoy in ignominy and despair. Thompson spends more than half the book on the voyage and tracks the two men's paths with aplomb.
