An occasional writer's journal

What is remarkable in the 200th anniversary year of the birth of Charles Darwin is the wealth of freely available online educational resources about the naturalist and his life and work.

Bloggers have kept pace with the mass media in highlighting the many events to celebrate the life of the author of On the Origin Of Species whose publication 150 years ago is celebrated on November 24.

One of the most impressive publications produced for the Darwin bicentenary is a free 100-page comic strip biography, the first book-length publication of its kind.

Charles Darwin: A Graphic Biography was published in the United Kingdom as part of the Lost World Read 2009 mass-participation reading project. The publisher, Gurr Illustration of Bristol, has a website giving details of shops, libraries and museums where the book is being given away. While stocks last, books can be collected in exchange for a downloadable coupon. (Offer limited to one copy of the book per coupon, and one coupon per person.)

The Lost World Read project, with Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World as its centrepiece, will also fascinate young explorers. Doyle’s novel is available free of charge in a full-text version and a children’s edition and there is an excellent reading guide to accompany it. For more information, see the website.

Another resource packed with information about Darwin, is the website Darwin Online. Particularly engaging is a downloadable series of readings of Darwin’s Beagle Diary, which was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in December 2006. The original Beagle Diary is owned by English Heritage and kept at Down House, Kent, now a museum.