HMS Beagle sketchbooks added to Cambridge Digital Library

Tiny sketchbooks that bring to life one of the most famous voyages in history have been digitised and made available online for the first time.

 

Darwin described the Beagle voyage as the most formative experience of his life and to see it through the eyes of one of his companions is a very vivid reminder of the reality of that journey.
   - Alison Pearn

The intricate pencil drawings and watercolours in the sketchbooks were made by Conrad Martens, shipmate to Charles Darwin as they travelled around South America on the voyage of HMS Beagle.

Now, for the first time, all of Martens’ Beagle sketches have been made freely available online through Cambridge University Library’s Digital Library: http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/ and can also be seen in the photo film here.

Read the full story

Image Credit: Conrad Martens/Cambridge Digital Library

Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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