True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World

Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington), 1844-1935Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
488K words
Chapters
49

Tags

English Originals Documentary Literature Polar ExplorationSocial ObservationSurvival in ExtremesLegendary LivesAdventure JourneyHeroismDocumentary Narrative

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.True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World by A. W. GreelyAuthor: Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington), 1844-1935,Language: English, Class: G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Release Date: Mar 11, 2012

Editor's review

Compiled by Adolphus W. Greely, an American polar explorer and military officer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book recounts true tales of heroism in the Arctic regions of the New World from the dual perspective of eyewitness and compiler of historical records. Greely himself led expeditions deep into the Arctic, and his narration combines a soldier's restraint with an explorer's immediacy; he does not strain for tragic effect but shows courage, discipline, and teamwork tested in extreme conditions. Organized around people and events, the book includes episodes of polar search and rescue, supply crises, and decisions made in bitter cold, while also reflecting the technical conditions and attitudes of geographical exploration at the time. As a public-domain e-book, it is best treated as a primary text in historical narrative and polar exploration history rather than modern popular science. Read it slowly, noting the language habits and narrative stance of the author's era, and thereby appreciate the texture of early exploration writing.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and chapter introductions first, then read one or two events in full, and return to consider how the author arranged his sources.
  2. Keep an Arctic map at hand to follow place names; this greatly reduces the sense of distance created by geographical information.
  3. Mark unfamiliar names of people and institutions as you go, then look them up together after finishing a chapter to avoid interrupting the narrative.

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

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a true record? It is nonfiction exploration narrative based on real people and events. The author, Greely, had polar exploration experience himself, and the book focuses on recording deeds and events rather than inventing plots, so it should be read as historical narrative.
Can I read it if my English is not good? The original is in English with nineteenth-century prose features and many long sentences. Readers with basic English can use a dictionary or a parallel translation; if you only want to learn about polar exploration, you might first read a Chinese general history and then return to selected chapters about figures that interest you.
Is it suitable for children? It depends on age. The book involves harsh content such as extreme cold, hunger, and casualties, which may upset younger children. Middle-school students and older readers interested in historical exploration can read selected chapters with adult guidance, focusing on courage, responsibility, and team decisions rather than sensational details of suffering.
Why emphasize that it is a public-domain e-book? The book is published by Project Gutenberg and is a freely available public-domain electronic text. This means readers can access it at no cost, but the edition usually preserves the original language and layout and may lack modern annotations, so readers need to supply background information themselves.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington), 1844-1935 Author · American · 1844–1935

Adolphus Washington Greely (1844–1935) was a United States Army officer and Arctic explorer who led the Greely Arctic Expedition. Public information about his early life and education is limited. Two of his works are held in this collection: Explorers and Travellers and True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World. Both draw on polar exploration and travel, recounting the hardships and deeds of high-latitude journeys from a first-hand perspective in a documentary yet narrative style. Such writing preserves primary material on nineteenth-century Arctic exploration and helped circulate tales of polar heroism among English-language readers, leaving a mark on later polar exploration literature.