Product Description

Francis Crozier, the stalwart Irish adventurer from Banbridge, County Down, was a major figure in the epic quests of 19th century Polar exploration - navigating the North West Passage, reaching the North Pole and mapping Antarctica. His remarkable story, which is now told for the first time, embraces six daring voyages of discovery to the world's most hostile regions and extraordinary feats of endurance, tragedy and failed romance. And the last taboo - cannibalism. The ground-breaking expeditions of Crozier with legendary explorers like Parry, Ross and Franklin lifted the veil from the frozen Arctic and Antarctic wastes and were crucial to the exploits of Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton in the 20th century. The four-year expedition to the Antarctic by Crozier and Ross was the last great journey of discovery made under sail and the icy Cape Crozier was immortalised in The Worst Journey in the World. Crozier's personal tragedy was an unhappy love affair with Franklin's beguiling niece which drove him back to the ice for one last time and the leading role in exploration's greatest disaster - Franklin's ill-fated North West Passage expedition in 1845. Desperate to please, Crozier sailed as second-in-command on her uncle's catastrophic venture to solve the 300-years old mystery of the North West Passage. All 129 men vanished in the ice. Scraps of information retrieved from the ice show that Crozier took command when their ships were crushed by the ice and expedition was on the brink of disaster. For several years Crozier led a courageous battle to survive, trying to lead his men to safety by finding a path out of the icy labyrinth. Crozier's desperate struggle to survive may have finally unlocked the secrets of the North West Passage. According to legend, Crozier was the last man to die - the last man standing. But Captain Francis Crozier never received full recognition for his great feats and he drifted into obscurity to become another of exploration's unsung heroes. With the aid of important new research and a modern perspective on historic events, it is now possible to piece together the first comprehensive biography of the man from County Down who was at the centre of Polar exploration in the pioneering age of the 19th century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103288 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 258 pages

Review
'Crozier could have asked for no better biographer than Michael Smith' Arctic Book Review 'A thoroughly enjoyable read' Irish Mountain Log 'A valiant attempt to bring Crozier back to heroic life' Walking World Ireland 'Wonderfully detailed and graphic account' Irish Examiner 'A welcome addition to the polar library' Sunday Business Post [Michael Smith] is consolidating a reputation as champion of those unsung heroes who deserve greater recognition than history had given them' Irish Independent 'An oddly uplifting tale of a true hero' Ireland on Sunday

About the Author
Michael Smith is author of the best-selling biography of Tom Crean, An Unsung Hero, which has sold 65,000 copies, and is an established authority on Polar exploration. His other books are I Am Just Going Outside, a biography of Captain Oates (2002) and Polar Crusader about Sir James Wordie (2004). Michael has also written two books for children, Iceman about Tom Crean and The Boss, a biography of Ernest Shackleton. He contributes to TV and radio documentaries and lectures frequently on Polar history. Michael was a business and political journalist with The Guardian and The Observer.

Customer Reviews

Usual great style from Polar writer
A tiny museum in Castletownbere gave me an tantilising introduction to Tom Crean, and an Amazon search then introduced me to Michael Smith and The Unsung Hero. I just loved it - a wonderful heoric tale by a very skilled author, and having fallen madly in love with Tom Crean I have now read just about everything there is on Antartic Exploration at the turn of the Century. This book is of the period half a century earlier and is written in the same wonderful style, where Michael Smith brings into your life a little known and probably even less admired hero. The book covers Crozier's many travels into both the Artic and Antartic, and takes us to the time when the latter was being explored for the first time, and most interesting, getting named. So those coves and coasts and mountains - Ross Shelf, Cape Crozier, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus etc, all come from Croziers era. Also, and so disappointingly, came all those bad habits that plagued the later explorations - like dependancy on man hauling, not using locally caught game, using canvas tents etc.
This is just a great book - just one small criticism - the picture reproduction is lousy and it desperately needs a couple of detailed maps at the beginning, so you can keep referring back, rather than try and find the rather undetailed ones hidden in the text.
Mr Smith - I've read both your Tom Crean books - please find another 'unsung hero' for us!