Cast Away in the Cold

Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel), 1832-1881Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
423K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals Frozen WildernessMan and NatureArctic SurvivalSea VoyageIsland AdventureTest of CourageComing of AgeSurvival WisdomAdventure Narrative19th Century Setting

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.Cast Away in the Cold by I. I. HayesAuthor: Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel), 1832-1881,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 23, 2007

Editor's review

Written by the nineteenth-century Arctic explorer Isaac Israel Hayes, this juvenile work centers on survival and drifting in extreme cold. Its value lies not only in the adventure plot but in the details drawn from the author's firsthand polar experience: ice fields, storms, ships, and supply hardships are all rendered with solid credibility, giving readers a real sense of bitter cold. As an early juvenile reader, it moves at a leisurely pace, with more description than thrills; it rewards slow, attentive reading and serves as a sample of nineteenth-century English children's literature. The electronic edition is provided free by Project Gutenberg, making it easy to read alongside and excerpt from. Watch for the natural observations and the characters' judgment in hardship—the most rewarding parts of the book.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first to feel the language rhythm, then decide between close and casual reading
  2. Skip nautical and polar terms at first to keep the overall flow
  3. Check the story's locations against a map to strengthen spatial sense
  4. After reading, note specific details describing cold and hardship

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

FAQ

What age is this book suitable for? It is positioned as juvenile literature, but the English was written in the nineteenth century, with longer sentences and older vocabulary. It is best attempted by middle school students and above with some English reading ability; younger children are better served by reading with an adult or choosing a translation.
Is the story fictional or based on real experience? The author, Hayes, was an Arctic explorer, and the book clearly draws on polar experience, but it is a juvenile literary work with literary treatment of plot and characters. Readers can treat it as an adventure story with a genuine feel rather than a strict exploration chronicle.
What should I note when reading the electronic edition? Project Gutenberg provides a free public-domain electronic text with plain formatting that may lack illustrations or notes. Use reading software that supports dictionary lookup and annotation so you can check unfamiliar words and track your progress.

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

Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel), 1832-1881 Author

Isaac Israel Hayes (I. I. Hayes, 1832–1881) was a nineteenth-century American explorer and writer known for his expeditions to the Arctic. Two of his works are held here, both drawing on his firsthand experience. The Land of Desolation: Being a Personal Narrative of Observation and Adventure records what he saw and endured on the far northern ice, combining survey notes with travel literature; Cast Away in the Cold tells of being trapped in the icy sea and struggling to survive, with a tight narrative and a clear flavor of adventure fiction. Hayes writes in the first person, emphasizing immediacy and detail and interweaving the harsh natural setting with human predicament, which gives his accounts a vivid, convincing quality. Together the two books show his sustained interest in the polar world and opened a window onto the Arctic for readers of his time. Public information about his life, education and other writings is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.