Anyone interested in the history of Arctic exploration cannot fail to be drawn into the story of Sir John Franklin. With the fate of his last expedition unknown for over a decade, people around the world speculated on what happened to this seasoned explorer. One reason their attention was sustained for so long was the determination and persistence of his wife, Lady Jane Franklin.

Recognizing the importance of this woman to her husband’s enduring fame, Erika Behrisch Elce, of the Royal Military College of Canada, has collected 29 of Lady Franklin’s letters, written to various public figures as she fought to prolong the search for the missing men. Included with the letters are detailed maps, an introduction, a chronology of events, and copious endnotes, all intended to put the correspondence into context, and explain why Lady Jane played such an integral part in her husband’s story.

In fact, the introduction is the most interesting part of this book. Elce traces both the role of Arctic explorers through history (from adventurous colonizers to expanders of scientific understanding), as well as the specific lead-up to Franklin’s expedition and the enduring fascination with its fate.

The letters themselves, however, are disappointingly dry and quickly become tedious. The decision to reproduce only public letters leads to repetition; the language is very formal, and the same facts are enumerated to several recipients. And while Elce hopes that these letters contain the kind of emotion that might have been found in documents written by Sir John himself, had he left any, this purpose would have been better served by a collection of his wife’s less-guarded correspondence.  

This slim collection leaves the reader with a very dry impression of a woman whose passion and commitment remain famous into our own time.