Virtual library
Books from the Natural History Museum's collection
Turn the pages of virtual books from the world’s largest natural history library.
Read parts of ground-breaking works like On the Origin of Species or browse images of pressed flowers collected by 16th century explorers, all from the comfort of your own computer.
Even today, these important natural history materials continue to help Museum scientists classify species and understand the natural world. Take a browse through these virtual books below.
-
HMS Challenger Report
Examine drawings of some of the specimens collected by the crew of HMS Challenger as you browse the original report from the expedition.
-
Herbarium sheets
Leaf through herbarium sheets full of pressed flowers and other plants. These historical collections were brought back to the Museum by explorers hundreds of years ago.
-
On the Origin of Species
Darwin's ground-breaking work On the Origin of Species introduced the idea of evolution by natural selection and changed the way scientists think about the natural world. Read extracts from the book.
-
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Follow Darwin's comparison of human and animal expressions in these extracts from his book.
Toolbox
There are 27 km of specimen shelves in the Darwin Centre - the same distance as between the Museum and Junction 6 of the M1.
