The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole

Eighty years of attempts on the North Pole, from Parry's sledge-boats of 1827 through Kane, Hayes, the Polaris and the Jeannette, the British expedition under Nares, Greely, Nansen's drift in the Fram, Sverdrup and the Duke of the Abruzzi's men under Cagni, to Peary and Cook — and the quarrel over who arrived. George Bryce compiled it in 1910, immediately after the rival claims were made, as a plain account of how each expedition was equipped and what it achieved, and he weighs the evidence on both claims. Fifty-eight plates of siege and ice by Caspar David Friedrich and Ivan Aivazovsky carry the story from Parry's sledge-boats to Peary's last camp.