Few lives of great men offer so much interest - and so many mysteries - as the life of Charles Darwin. Many books have been devoted to various aspects of his theories, his personality, even his inexplicable ill-health. Now in this truly magisterial biography, Janet Browne brings Darwin to us whole. With great subtlety and understanding, using a range of materials and subject matter she is uniquely qualified to deploy, she enables us to see Darwin and the world of 19th-century science with fascinating clarity. This volume, the first of two, takes him from childhood and university through the Beagle voyage, which shaped him as a scientist, and the years of e xperiment and thought leading up to his difficult decision to publish The Origin of the Species.