Jane Franklin (1792-1875) became well known in the middle of the nineteenth century for her tireless campaign to discover the fate of the lost Arctic expedition led by her husband, Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). The editor of this volume, Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845-1927), was Sir John's great-nephew, with access to the family papers. The four sections of this work, first published in 1923, address Jane's life before her marriage in 1828; the period when her husband was posted to the Mediterranean; life in Tasmania, where Sir John served as governor; and Lady Franklin's quest to learn the fate of her husband's expedition in search of the North-West Passage. Given appropriate context, the extracts illuminate her interest in European travel, her activities in Tasmania - especially in education and the treatment of female convicts - and her movements over the globe after searches discovered evidence of her husband's demise--Provided by publisher.

In 1845 an expedition led by Sir John Franklin vanished in the Canadian Arctic. The enduring obsession with the Franklin mystery, and in particular Inuit information about its fate, is partly due to the ways in which information was circulated in these imperial spaces. This book examines how the Franklins and other explorer families engaged in science, exploration and the exchange of information in the early to mid-19th century. It follows the Franklins from the Arctic to Van Diemen's Land, charting how they worked with intermediaries, imperial humanitarians and scientists, and shows how they used these experiences to claim a moral right to information. Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge shows how the indigenous peoples, translators, fur traders, whalers, convicts and sailors who explorer families relied upon for information were both indispensable and inconvenient to the Franklins. It reveals a deep entanglement of polar expedition with British imperialism, and shows how geographical knowledge intertwined with convict policy, humanitarianism, genocide and authority. In these imperial spaces families such as the Franklins negotiated their tenuous authority over knowledge to engage with the politics of truth and question the credibility and trustworthiness of those they sought to silence.

Sixteen papers from the 1984 multidisciplinary symposium entitled “The Franklin Era in Canadian Arctic History, 1845-59” held in Ottawa, Ontario. The papers address a wide range of research topics and issues surrounding the disappearance of Sir John Franklin and his third expedition to the Canadian Arctic, 1845-1948, and the subsequent search efforts that spanned the period from 1847 to 1859.

The lives and adventures of seven intrepid women are revealed in “this gem of a book . . . as captivating as the northern landscape itself” (Portland Book Review). Polar explorers were the superstars of the "heroic age" of exploration, a period spanning the Victorian and Edwardian eras. In Polar Wives, Kari Herbert reveals the unpredictable, often heartbreaking lives of seven remarkable women whose husbands became world-famous for their Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. As the daughter of a polar explorer, Herbert brings a unique and intimate perspective to these stories. In her portraits of the gifted sculptor Kathleen Scott; eccentric traveler Jane Franklin; spirited poet Eleanor Anne Franklin; Jo Peary, the first white woman to travel and give birth in the High Arctic; talented and determined Emily Shackleton; Norwegian singer Eva Nansen; and her own mother, writer and pioneer Marie Herbert, Kari Herbert blends deeply personal accounts of longing, betrayal, and hope with stories of peril and adventure. Previously consigned to historical footnotes, these pioneering women played vital roles in their husbands' expeditions. Their stories—many drawn from previously unpublished journals and letters—take us not only to the polar wastelands but also through war-torn Macedonia, the lawless outback of Australia, and the plague-riddled ancient cities of the Holy Land.

Lobsticks and stone cairns are landmarks that mark paths and commemorate events. The one hundred biographies in this book also offer themselves as paths to be taken. Centuries of human endeavour, hardship, folly, and suffering are collapsed into stories through which we can discover what the Arctic is and has been. Profiled in this book are "human landmarks" dating from as far back as the sixteenth century to those still active in the North today. Included are stories of adventurers, military officers, authors, guides, culture heroes, police, traders, and even the occasional charlatan. The biographies are of Inuit, European, American, Indian, and Canadian men and women. What appears here is the essence of each person, rendered by an expert and put in a new context, bringing the history and geography of the North to life.

Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition departed England in 1845 with two Royal Navy bomb vessels, 129 men and three years' worth of provisions. None were seen again until nearly a decade later, when their bleached bones, broken instruments, books, papers and personal effects began to be recovered on Canada's King William Island. These relics have since had a life of their own--photographed, analyzed, cataloged and displayed in glass cases in London. This book gives a definitive history of their preservation and exhibition from the Victorian era to the present, richly illustrated with period engravings and photographs, many never before published. Appendices provide the first comprehensive accounting of all expedition relics recovered prior to the 2014 discovery of Franklin's ship HMS Erebus.