As a sequel to my Darwin pilgrimage to the Natural History Museum, I took a stroll down Euston Road yesterday to view the British Library’s offerings. In Darwin’s Footsteps fills the Folio Society Gallery on the first floor, and offers a tidy and compact version of the NHM’s leviathan.

The visitor is coaxed into the exhibition via a recreation of the ‘sand walk’, the path which winds around the gardens of Darwin’s residence at Down House. Darwin would spend an hour each day perambulating along this track, deep in thought about the natural world. Once inside, the exhibition pulls together a similar collection of stories to those at the NHM—the Galapagos species that got Darwin thinking, the route of the Beagle, and the 20 year intellectual journey in which Darwin collected evidence and honed the ideas finally presented in On the Origin of Species. This being a library, there’s an emphasis on books. Works by the key writers who inspired Darwin—including Malthus, Lyell and Erasmus Darwin—are given centre stage. Alfred Russel Wallace also gets a decent fanfare for his independent work that almost scooped Darwin. The gallery concludes with a minimal treatment of the genetic revolution, and the continuing importance of Darwin’s ideas.

In Darwin’s Footsteps offers a potted guide to the big man, suitably sized for digesting in a lunch hour. The exhibition is free and runs until 22 March.