The Last Logbook: Franklin's Lost Expedition
How 129 men vanished in the Arctic, and how DNA began giving them their names back
$6.99
PDF and EPUB · 75 pages · 17,000 words · instant download
Two Royal Navy ships sailed from the Thames in May 1845 to find the Northwest Passage. One hundred and twenty-nine men were aboard. Not one came home.
Almost everything we know comes from a single sheet of paper found in a cairn of stones fourteen years later, written on twice a year apart — and from the Inuit who saw what happened and were not believed for a century and a half.
This companion book is the full account behind the episode.
The video is seventeen minutes. This is the whole thing. Every date, every name, every object the searchers found and what it proves — and what it does not. The six explanations for what killed them, each one weighed and ranked. The questions still open. And the full source list, so you can check any of it yourself.
What you get
- A dated timeline from the Thames in 1845 to the DNA identifications of 2024
- Ten people, half a page each — who they were and what became of them
- Every surviving object and document, and what each one actually proves
- Six theories for what killed them, ranked, with the evidence for and against
- An honest list of what is still unknown
- Full citations: primary records, books, institutions and papers
Contents
- 1.The Opening Scene
- 2.Before: Britain and the Northwest Passage
- 3.The Cast
- 4.The Timeline
- 5.What Went Wrong
- 6.The Evidence
- 7.The Search
- 8.The Theories
- 9.What We Know Now
- 10.What Is Still Unknown
- 11.Go Deeper
- 12.Sources
Formats and refunds
- Formats
- PDF and EPUB, both included in every purchase. No DRM.
- Delivery
- Instant download after payment. Buyers also receive any later revision of the book automatically.
- Refunds
- If the book is not what you expected, reply to your receipt within 30 days and you will be refunded in full. See the terms.
About the making of this book
This book was researched and written with the assistance of AI tools. Every fact, date and quotation has been checked against the sources listed at the end. The illustrations are AI-generated reconstructions, not photographs, except where an image is credited to an archive.