Lady Franklin's Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of Arctic History

Peter Harmathy teaches secondary-school fine arts in Barrie, Ontario.

Ken McGoogan is an award-winning Toronto writer whose books include the
national bestseller Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the
Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin. McGoogan’s
third biography focuses on the wife of Sir John Franklin, known for his
ill-fated overland journey of 1821 (11 of 20 lives lost), and his sea
expedition of 1845 that resulted in the loss of his entire crew of 129
souls.

Jane Franklin’s climb up the social ladder started when she
engineered her courtship to a recently widowed Franklin. After marriage
(1828) and Franklin’s subsequent knighthood, Jane used her position of
privilege to gain access to exotic travel opportunities and contact with
distinguished luminaries of the Royal Geographical Society, the
Admiralty, and Parliament. She cleverly manipulated the career of her
inept, frumpy husband, and her influence led to a decision to select the
aging Franklin (then 59) over other more suitable candidates for a major
arctic expedition to navigate the Northwest Passage. Three years later
(1848), the search for the missing expedition began. Lady Franklin
posted a lofty reward for the rescue of her husband, which launched a
massive exploration frenzy that resulted in more lives lost. The
remainder of the book recounts the remarkable perseverance of Jane,
whose finances, influence, and sanity were stretched to their limits in
her quest for closure. Then, more than 10 years after the disappearance
of her husband’s expedition, a fateful and gruesome discovery was
finally made by explorer John Rae.

Lady Franklin’s Revenge gives us a rich snapshot of life during the
vainglorious age of British colonial expansion. The second half of the
book provides a fascinating read for those whose interests lie in arctic
exploration lore, satisfactorily filling in all the missing gaps in the
search for—and final resolution of—the Franklin mystery.