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FitzRoy

FitzRoy

The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast

by Mary Gribbin and John Gribbin
Hardback
Publication Date: 11/08/2004

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$42.99
The name of Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle, is forever linked with that of his most famous passenger, Charles Darwin. This exceptionally interesting biography brings FitzRoy out of Darwin s shadow for the first time, revealing a man who experienced high adventure, suffered tragic disappointments, andas the inventor of weather forecastingsaved the lives of countless fellow mariners.
John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin draw a detailed portrait of FitzRoy, recounting the wide range of his accomplishments and exploring the motivations that drove him. As a very young and successful commander in the British navy, FitzRoy s life was in the mold of a Patrick O Brian novel. Later disappointments, including an unpopular tenure as governor of New Zealand and a sense of dismay over his own contributions to Darwin s ideas of evolution, troubled FitzRoy. Even his groundbreaking accomplishments in meteorological science failed to satisfy his high personal expectations, and in 1865 FitzRoy committed suicide at the age of sixty. This biography focuses well-deserved attention on FitzRoy s status as a scientist and seaman, affirming that his was a life which, despite its sorrowful end, encompassed many more successes than failures.

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ISBN:
9780300103618
9780300103618
Category:
Biography: science
Format:
Hardback
Publication Date:
11-08-2004
Language:
English
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Country of origin:
United States
Pages:
336
Dimensions (mm):
243x164x29mm
Weight:
0.67kg
Mary Gribbin

Mary Gribbin is a teacher with a special gift for communicating difficult concepts, and she is a previous winner of the TES Junior Information Book Award.

John and Mary are both Visiting Fellows at the University of Sussex. They have co-written several titles, including Out of the Shadow of a Giant.

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