The Beagle

The Beagle was a brig—a wooden ship, powered by sails—and was considered to be the fifth-fastest vessel in England at the time. But it was small, at around twenty-eight meters long, which is only the length of two double-decker buses! Between sixty and seventy-three crew were on board the Beagle, so living conditions were very cramped. Darwin slept in the tiny poop cabin, in a hammock he strung up every evening over the table where the officers read their charts.

Under the orders of Captain Fitzroy, the Beagle had been fitted with a new, raised deck that helped keep it stable in the water. He did this, as this type of ship had such a bad habit of sinking—they were known as “coffin brigs.” I am guessing they probably didn’t tell Charles Darwin that!

It may seem strange to name a ship after a breed of dog, but naming ships after animals is common in the British Royal Navy. Some of my favorite navy ship names are HMS Greyhound, HMS Bulldog, HMS Bat, HMS Beaver, HMS Ferret, and HMS Peacock!

How did you come up with the idea to combine dragons with Charles Darwin’s famous voyage?

This planet was once home to the magnificent dinosaurs, so why not dragons?

The plan for this story was about real-world dragons, animals that felt like they could exist and weren’t fantastical. My publishers asked me to add a small historical part, and I immediately thought of Darwin’s famous voyage, as I already knew a bit about it from teaching the evolution topic to ten-year-olds. I started to research the voyage of the Beagle and discovered that Darwin promoted the cabin boy and ship’s fiddler, Syms Covington, to be his personal servant, and to assist on expeditions and with collecting specimens. When I wrote Syms’s part of the story, it just felt right somehow; A Discovery of Dragons had hatched!

This is your first historical novel. Did that make it more difficult to write?

I am fascinated by the past and read a lot of historical books for adults and children but never thought I could write one myself. It was hard enough getting a story right without having to research a different time as well! So I was surprised when the voice of Syms flowed out quite easily. No matter what the story is, for me, the characters come first. It was only once I had written the first draft and my characters and plot were in place that I began researching to get the historical details right. That took me months! But I didn’t mind, as I loved learning more about this era. During the 1800s, the steam train, electric lighting, matches, bicycles, stamps, and so much more were all invented. Louis Pasteur came up with his germ theory, Michael Faraday discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism, and Mary Anning was digging up dinosaur bones on the west coast of England. It seemed a perfect time to discover dragons.