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Hell on Ice

The Saga of the Jeannette

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Hell on Ice

By: Edward Ellsberg
Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
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The thrilling adventure of one crew's harrowing journey back from the Earth's most foreboding frozen hell

In the 1870s, newspaperman James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald drummed up excitement and publicity for his paper through highly publicized missions of exploration. In 1879, Bennett's idea for a voyage was his most audacious to date: the North Pole. To do this, he hired a team of naval veterans in addition to a smattering of civilians with specialized knowledge in meteorology, whaling, and naturalism. The men on board the Jeannette set off in September of 1879. This would be the last time anyone saw them for two years.

The product of devoted research into personal histories, memoirs, and classified congressional investigation records, Hell on Ice is a remarkable document: a novelization of history, turning the horrible ordeal of the brave men of the Jeannette into a riveting narrative. Written with a weathered seaman's familiarity, the story brilliantly captures a most perilous voyage from the perspective of the ship's chief engineer. The men of the Jeannette endure months trapped in an Arctic ice pack, and then begin a desperate trek for home.

©1938 Edward Ellsberg and Lucy Buck Ellsberg (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Action & Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Military Sea Adventures Adventure Polar Region Sailing
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The story of the Jeanette was one I hadn’t read prior to seeing it on Audible.

Glad I downloaded it.

This is an epic story of a battle against the odds and the ferocity of two Arctic winters.

Just when you think the worst is over three little boats set out on a voyage that should sit alongside Shackleton’s voyage of the James Caird.

The ending is tinged with tragedy, but the whole book frames this with an incredible account of human endurance.

Another superb book from the oen of Edward Ellsberg

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