|
This Thing of Darkness was the debut novel of Harry Thompson, published in 2005 only months before his death in November of that year at the age of 45. Set in the period from 1828 to 1865, it is a historical novel telling the fictionalised biography of Robert FitzRoy, who was given command of ''HMS Beagle'' halfway through her first voyage. He subsequently captained her during the vessel’s famous second voyage, on which Charles Darwin travelled as his companion. The novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Its title comes from Prospero's line "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine" in Act V, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s ''The Tempest''. ==Historical background== Born to an aristocratic family, Robert FitzRoy joined the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth aged 12 and entered the Royal Navy the following year, rising rapidly through the ranks. The novel begins in 1828 with the suicide of the commander of ''HMS Beagle'', Pringle Stokes, and FitzRoy’s subsequent appointment as the vessel’s (temporary) captain at the age of twenty-three. Whilst conducting ''Beagle''’s mission of surveying Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, during which he proved to be a meticulous surveyor, he captured four native Fuegians and brought them back to England when ''Beagle'' returned in October 1830. FitzRoy’s intention was that they should be educated and Christianised before being returned to their homelands, where they would be able to act as interpreters - with the aim of establishing friendly relations between their fellow countrymen and the British – and also use their new knowledge to improve the lives of their compatriots. The captives became celebrities and were presented to King William IV; one later died from smallpox. FitzRoy undertook the second voyage of ''Beagle'' to return the surviving three Fuegians, at considerable personal expense. He was accompanied by Charles Darwin, who by the end of the voyage had become famous in scientific circles as a result of the discoveries he made during it, and who also collected much of the material that was to underpin his evolutionary theories during these travels. Decades later, following the publication of ''The Origin of Species'', FitzRoy - a commmited Christian - regretted that he had facilitated Darwin’s research. On ''Beagle''’s return to England, FitzRoy was elected as the Tory Member of Parliament for Durham. He was appointed to several official posts, amongst them becoming the second Governor of New Zealand. His attempts to treat the indigenous Māori population equitably made him unpopular with the settlers and the New Zealand Company and he was recalled to England. FitzRoy was a pioneer of developing charts to allow weather predictions to be made; weather forecasting is named after his attempts at what he called "forecasting the weather". He published the world’s first daily weather forecasts in ''The Times'' in 1860 and also provided personal forecasts to Queen Victoria. He committed suicide in April 1865 as a result of depression and a combination of problems at the Meteorological Office, which he headed, and financial and health difficulties. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「This Thing of Darkness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|