A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer by Diana Preston and Michael Preston

Dampier performed many extraordinary achievements in his lifetime: he mapped the winds and the currents of the world's oceans for the first time; led the first recorded party of Englishmen to set foot on Australia - 80 years before Cook; and was an enthusiastic naturalist - following his visit to the Galapagos islands he wrote about their wildlife 150 years before Darwin, who drew on Dampier's notes in his own work.