Dead Reckoning: The Greatest Adventure Writing from the Golden Age of Exploration, 1800-1900 (Outside Books) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393010546 ISBN 13: 9780393010541

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Collects top nineteenth-century discovery voyage stories, including those about Fridtjof Nansen's solitary walk to the North Pole, Mary Kingsley's forays into the West African jungle, and Richard Burton's forbidden pilgrimage to Mecca.

About this title

About the Author:

HELEN WHYBROW is a book and magazine editor, freelance writer and organic farmer.

From Publishers Weekly:

Whybrow shows up today's "extreme" adventurers in this hefty collection of 19th-century narratives. Before corporate sponsorship, before helicopter rescues, even before Sir Ernest Shackleton's famous voyage, people who explored the wilderness found endless wonder and danger. "Risk," Whybrow observes, "hardly had to be sought; it was part of the package." The years between 1800 and 1900 were unmatched for sheer exploratory guts and glory as exhibited by Europeans of a certain gender and race; this was the century when men were men, women were women and people of color were "the blacks." Each one of these 32 captivating narratives (grouped by theme into three sections) packs a big emotional punch, whether it's a horrifying tale of starvation and injury or an awestruck description of natural wonders. "Voyages of Discovery" highlights sponsored quests for worldly knowledge: Meriwether Lewis runs from a bear on the Missouri River, and John Wesley Powell runs the Grand Canyon's rapids. In "Personal Odysseys," Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s well-known sea journey and Mrs. Alfred "Mary" Mummery's proto-feminist alpine expedition join the voyages of other passionate explorers seeking adventure on land and sea. "Lifelong Quests" features excerpts from the lives of obsessive explorers such as John Muir, Isabella Bird and Sven Hedin, the Swedish geographer whose 1899 attempt to reach Lhasa prompted him to write, "we had tasted the enchantment of the great adventure as never before." 30 illustrations
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393010546
• ISBN 13: 9780393010541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416
• Editor: Whybrow Helen