Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation
Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation by Andrew Lambert London: Faber & Faber, 2009 £20 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Andrew Lambert's Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation is the first new scholarly biography of Sir John Franklin in many years. How many? Well, it depends on how you count. Deadly Winter , Martyn Beardsley's 2002 biography, was more of a general-interest work, while John Wilson's lively 2001 volume, John Franklin: Traveller on Undiscovered Seas , was geared to younger readers. Before that, if one wanted a detailed biography by a naval historian one would have to reach back almost to Richard J. Cyriax's Sir John Franklin's Last Expeditio n in 1939. So there can be no doubt that the appearance of Lambert's study is an occasion for celebration among all with an interest in the strange fate of this unhappy navigator. And yet, as Franklin has come to mean so many things for so many people, it might be wise to say at the outset wh