The Jeannette Expedition to the North Pole, Told by All the Members of

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
596K words
Chapters
60

Tags

Foreign Language Books Historical Geography Polar ExplorationSurvival ChallengeScientific ExpeditionAdventure JourneyFate and FortuneTragic EventCourageTeam SpiritDocumentary NarrativeArctic Landscape

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.L'expédition de la Jeannette au pôle Nord, racontée par tous les membres deAuthor: ,Language: French, Class: G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Release Date: Jun 23, 2017

Editor's review

This book is a collective account of the late nineteenth-century Arctic expedition of the Jeannette, narrated separately by members of the expedition; the original French edition was prepared as a public-domain eBook by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies first in its polyphonic structure: the same disastrous voyage is recorded by different participants from their own perspectives, allowing readers to compare different passages and sense how information, judgment, and luck intertwined in the polar environment. The content belongs to geography and expedition documentary, covering real experiences such as navigation in ice, the ship being trapped, and the crew's struggle to survive, and is suitable for readers interested in the history of Arctic exploration, nineteenth-century navigation technology, or documentary writing. It should not be read as a tightly plotted adventure novel but as a historical narrative: note the differences in the narrators' identities, the distortions brought by memory and retelling, and the limitations of the exploration concepts and technological conditions of the time. The French original poses a barrier for non-French readers, and reading it alongside maps and background materials is recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First find a map of the Arctic and a simple chart of the Jeannette's route, and locate the positions mentioned in the narrative as you read.
  2. Read in groups by narrator and record the differences in how different members describe the same event.
  3. Mark nautical and ice-condition terms first, and verify them together after finishing a whole passage to avoid interrupting the flow.
  4. Read alongside other Arctic expedition documentaries to appreciate polar writing from different eras and perspectives.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a true expedition record? It is a documentary narrative of the Jeannette's Arctic expedition, narrated separately by members of the expedition; it is a historical source in the geography and exploration category, not a fictional novel. The specific content is based on the members' own accounts in the book, and readers should note its nature as firsthand recollection.
Can I read this book without knowing French? The original book is in French, and direct reading requires a foundation in French. If you do not know French, you can first use Chinese or English background materials on the relevant expedition to understand the course of events and then read alongside them; you may also seek a reliable translation for assistance, but note the differences between the translation and the original narrative.
Why is it narrated separately by 'all members'? Multi-member narration is a structural feature of this book, intended to let each participant leave their own record. This can present the observations and feelings of people in different positions and with different duties, but it also brings problems of scattered perspectives and uneven detail, requiring readers to integrate the threads of events themselves.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.