'The depth of scholarship evident in the individual essays is impressive, and they complement each other in obvious and unexpected ways... the book forms a valuable and enjoyable addition to scholarship on exploration narratives and provides remarkable insight into the lives of the best-remembered participants in the nineteenth century British quest for the Northwest Passage.' Journal of British Studies

• Introduction Exploration and Sacrifice: The Cultural Logic of Arctic Discovery, Russell A. Potter; Part I Hubris, Conflicts and Desires; Chapter 1 John Barrow’s Darling Project (1816–46), I. S. MacLaren; Chapter 2 Eskimaux, Officers and Gentlemen Sir John Ross in the ICY Fields of Credibility (1818–46), Frédéric Regard; Chapter 3 ‘In the Company of Strangers’: Shedding Light on Robert Mcclure’s Claim of Discovery (1850–7), Catherine Pesso-Miquel; Part II Hubris, Confl icts and Desires; Chapter 4 Miss Porden, Mrs Franklin and the Arctic Expeditions: Eleanor Anne Porden and the Construction of Arctic Heroism (1818–25), Janice Cavell; Chapter 5 Arctic Romance Under a Cloud: Franklin’s Second Expedition by Land (1825–7), Catherine Lanone; Chapter 6 Unremitting Exertions: Sentiment and Responsibility in Jane Franklin’s Correspondence (1854), Penny Russell; Part III The Northwest Passage in Nineteenth-Century Culture; Chapter 7 Discovery as Cheerful Endurance: William Edward Parry’s Quest (1819–25), Jan Borm; Chapter 8 ‘Is this the End?’: Swinburne’s Paradoxical Tribute to Sir John Franklin (1860), Charlotte Ribeyrol; Chapter 9 A Certain ‘Want of Arch-Inscape’? The Critical Reception of Millais’s North-West Passage (1874), Laurent Bury;