The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition
In July 1883 an expedition made up mostly of American soldiers sailed off to establish a scientific base in the remote Arctic region of Lady Franklin Bay.
What happened then is a remarkable three year saga of human achievement and human fallibility, of heroism and hardship, bad luck and worse judgment. Compounded by deliberate political negligence back home, and increasing fears of dissension in its own camp, the expedition's fate and those of its would-be rescuers would eventually encompass starvation, mutiny, suicide, shipwreck, execution and cannibalism. Of the twenty-five men who set out on the expedition, only six returned.
This story has only been partly known until now and is full of dark riddles. More than seven years of research by acclaimed historian Leonard Gutteridge has uncovered journals, letters, diaries and other documentary material that for the first time provide intimate day-by-day details of the thoughts, feelings and events of that ill-fated voyage, from its turbulent birth to its bizzare and tragic finale.
This is a work of non-fiction narrative that reads like a novel: it's a raw, vivid and harrowing adventure brilliantly told.
