I May Be Some Time - Ice and the English Imagination

Francis Spufford explores the British obsession with polar exploration in a book that Jan Morris, writing in The Times, called, "A truly majestic work of scholarship, thought and literary imagination . . ." The title, a last quote from one explorer to his party as he left their tent never to return, embodies the danger and mystery that fueled the romantic allure of the poles and, subsequently, the British imagination. Far from being a conventional history of polar exploration, I May Be Some Time attempts to understand what was going on in the minds of the polar explorers as they headed toward destinies like Terra Nova. Serving up a heady brew of Captain Perry, Jane Eyre, gastronomic obsessions with iced desserts, and the daily lives of Eskimos, Spufford treats the reader to one of the most satisfying and imaginative contemporary works dealing with exploration and human need.

List of contents

A Different History for the Poles * The Sublime * News from Nowhere * Damn the North Pole * The Powers of Frost and Air * Lady Jane's Lament * Relics in the Snow * Imagining Eskimos * Comfortable Barbarians * I Have Always Taken My Place, Haven't I?

About the author

Francis Spufford

Product details

• Authors: Francis Spufford
• Assisted by: Michael Flamini (Editor)
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.07.1999
• EAN: 9780312220815
• ISBN: 978-0-312-22081-5
• No. of pages: 394
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 21 mm
• Weight: 494 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous