Most of Charles Darwin's published works were scientific papers which, while important in their day, hold little interest for the modern reader. The exceptions are among his longest works, and were written with the general reader in mind as at least a portion of the audience. The Voyage of the Beagle is the earliest of these, published in 1839, and details his five-year trip on the H.M.S. Beagle, surveying the coast of South America; both a travel memoir and an account of scientific field research, it is probably the most enjoyable to read of all his work.

The Origin of Species, published twenty years later, is a major work of biology, and provided the foundation for the modern life sciences. While evolutionary science has been refined since Darwin's day, his core ideas remain at its center. He further developed them in 1871's The Descent of Man, his first work to treat the process of evolution in the human race, and in the following year he published its sequel, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, which remains a fascinating work of evolutionary psychology.

Works

1835: Extracts from letters to Professor Henslow (privately printed, not for public sale)
1836: A LETTER, Containing Remarks on the Moral State of TAHITI, NEW ZEALAND, &c. - BY CAPT. R. FITZROY AND C. DARWIN, ESQ. OF H.M.S. 'Beagle.'
1838-43: Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle: published between 1839 and 1843 in five Parts (and nineteen numbers) by various authors, edited and superintended by Charles Darwin, who contributed sections to two of the Parts:
1838: Part 1 No. 1 Fossil Mammalia, by Richard Owen (Preface and Geological introduction by Darwin)
1838: Part 2 No. 1 Mammalia, by George R. Waterhouse (Geographical introduction and A notice of their habits and ranges by Darwin)
1839: Journal and Remarks (The Voyage of the Beagle)
1842: The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
1844: Geological Observations of Volcanic Islands
1846: Geological Observations on South America
1849: Geology from A Manual of scientific enquiry; prepared for the use of Her Majesty's Navy: and adapted for travellers in general., John F.W. Herschel ed.
1851: A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of all the Species. The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes.
1851: A Monograph on the Fossil Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes of Great Britain
1854: A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of all the Species. The Balanidae (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidae, etc.
1854: A Monograph on the Fossil Balanidae and Verrucidae of Great Britain
1858: On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection (Extract from an unpublished Work on Species)
1859: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
1862: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects
1868: Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication
1871: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
1872: The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
1875: Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants
1875: Insectivorous Plants
1876: The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom
1877: The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species
1879: "Preface and 'a preliminary notice'" in Ernst Krause's Erasmus Darwin
1880: The Power of Movement in Plants
1881: The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms