In the mid-nineteenth century, thirty-six expeditions set out for the Northwest Passage in search of Sir John Franklin's missing expedition. The array of visual and textual material produced on these voyages was to have a profound impact on the idea of the Arctic in the Victorian imaginary. Eavan O'Dochartaigh closely examines neglected archival sources to show how pictures created in the Arctic fed into a metropolitan view transmitted through engravings, lithographs, and panoramas. Although the metropolitan Arctic revolved around a fulcrum of heroism, terror and the sublime, the visual culture of the ship reveals a more complicated narrative that included cross-dressing, theatricals, dressmaking, and dances with local communities. O'Dochartaigh's investigation into the nature of the on-board visual culture of the nineteenth-century Arctic presents a compelling challenge to the 'man-versus-nature' trope that still reverberates in polar imaginaries today. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Uncovering a wealth of archival information, Eavan O'Dochartaigh gives fresh and surprising insight into the Victorian image of the Arctic.About the AuthorEavan O'Dochartaigh is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at National University of Ireland Galway. Prior to this she was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at Umea University in northern Sweden and a Government of Ireland Doctoral Scholar at National University of Ireland Galway. She has also worked as an archaeologist and archaeological illustrator in Ireland, Iceland, and the UK.
Book InformationISBN 9781108834339
Author Eavan O'DochartaighFormat Hardback
Page Count 228
Imprint Cambridge University PressPublisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 600g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 159mm * 20mm