Arctic Hell-ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise, 1850-1855

In 1850 the British Admiralty dispatched HMS Enterprise to Bering Strait under the command of Captain Richard Collinson, to search for the missing Franklin expedition in what is now the Canadian Arctic. Enterprise emerged from the Arctic again in 1854, having thrown very little light on the fate of the Franklin expedition. Nonetheless Collinson has generally been credited with achieving an impressive feat of navigation for having successfully taken his ship through uncharted waters. Arctic Hell-Ship describes the daily progress of this little-known arctic expedition, but at the same time follows the steadily worsening relations between Collinson and his officers as tensions on board the ship steadily mounted, with all four of Collinson's executive officers eventually being placed under arrest. The author has based his research on a wide range of original archival documents, and the book is illustrated with a selection of vivid paintings by the ship's assistant surgeon, Edward Adams.