8/16/2023 0 Comments Erebus michael palin book pdf![]() As always, there are far more officer sources (notably here Robert McCormick and the genius naturalist Joseph Dalton Hooker) than those of regular seamen. The prose style is fluent, though Palin might have allowed himself more jokes and fewer anachronisms (“on all accounts a bit of a drip” “there was no plan B”). Plucky Inuit recount meetings with starving white men who stagger around after their ships have sunk It is an epic story, full of appalling human suffering (everyone died) and one constantly revised as fresh discoveries float to the surface. It is a well-known tale, replete with human bones in kettles, plucky Inuit recounting meetings with starving white men who stagger around after their ships have sunk and the efforts of Lady Jane Franklin (she of the terrible handwriting, to anyone that has researched the archives) to dispatch rescue ships. That story begins two-thirds of the way through Palin’s book. It was Franklin who later captained Erebus on its final mission (by then installed with a steam-driven, screw-propeller system), a doomed assault on the Northwest Passage, the fabled trade route to the riches of Cathay, again accompanied by the loyal Terror. On its way south, the three-masted Erebus had stopped off at Tasmania, then Van Diemen’s Land, and met the useless Lt Governor John Franklin. They didn’t make their goal of the south magnetic pole but, writes Palin, “never again, in the annals of the sea, would a ship, under sail alone, come close to matching what she and Terror had achieved”. It is hard to imagine what the Erebus crew thought and felt as they sailed along the 30-metre (98ft) high ice cliffs of this shelf the size of France.Įrebus and Terror were the first sailing ships to break through the pack and the first to discover that an Antarctic continent existed. The crew enjoyed a double allowance of rum to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. In September 1839, accompanied by HMS Terror, it dropped her pilot off Deal in Kent and spent four years on an Antarctic adventure, where the dashing James Clark Ross captained her to the Barrier, or the Ross ice shelf as it was then known. Erebus spent two years patrolling the Mediterranean “to annoy the Turks”, then its life as a warship ended. After Waterloo, the navy was at a loose end. Brings energy, wit and humanity to a story that has never ceased to tantalise people since the 1840s.Palin is strong on historical context. Told in a very relaxed and sometimes - as you might expect - very funny Palin style.' David Baddiel, Daily Mail Carefully researched and well-crafted, it brings the story of a ship vividly to life.' Sunday Times ![]() The Erebus story is the Arctic epic we've all been waiting for.' Nicholas Crane It's a fascinating story that brings full-bloodedly to life.' Guardian Now available: Michael Palin's North Korea Journals Her fate remained a mystery for over 160 years. On the second, she vanished with her 129-strong crew in the wastes of the Canadian Arctic, along with the HMS Terror. On the first, she ventured further south than any human had ever been. In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER: the remarkable true story of the exploration ship featured in The Terror
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