Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall Explorer (Modern Library Exploration)

In 1860 fifteen years after Sir John Franklins ill-fated expedition disappeared in the Arctic a Cincinnati businessman named Charles Francis Hall set out to locate and rescue the expeditions survivors. He was an amateur explorer without any scientific training or experience but he was driven by a sense of personal destiny and of religious and patriotic mission. Despite the odds against him he made three forays into the far North the final--and fatal--one taking him farther north than any westerner had ever gone before. But Hall was suddenly taken ill on that voyage and died under mysterious circumstances.. Ninety-seven years later Chauncey Loomis headed an expedition to Halls grave in northwestern Greenland. He exhumed Halls frozen body and performed an autopsy. His findings suggest that the investigators of Halls death nervously sidestepped the damning evidence. Loomis has written a masterful biography-cum-mystery that brilliantly evokes the lure of the Arctic and the brutal contest between man and nature.        With a new Introduction by Andrea Barrett author of The Voyage of the Narwhal