A romance based on information”

The curious case of Clements Markham’s Franklin Expedition novel

Bibliographic Data

ID9219576
AuthorsAllegra Rosenberg (0000-0001-8961-2035, Film Independent, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume60
Publication date2024-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolar Record (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-2474 • E-ISSN: 1475-3057
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0032247424000081
OpenAlexW4399399771
LanguageEN
References cited17

Sir Clements Markham (1830-1916), secretary of the Royal Geographical Society for many decades, is best known for his role in shaping the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration and especially the career of his protege Robert Falcon Scott. His unpublished work of Franklin Expedition fiction, a 350-page handwritten manuscript held in the collection of the RGS, is an understudied artefact which has much to say about Markham’s life, work, and ideology. A work of fact-based history, yet also a fantasy on themes of chivalry, his 1899 novel James Fitzjames..., while occasionally mined for biographical information by scholars of the 19th-century Arctic, has never been fully evaluated on its own terms. An initial read reveals various preoccupations: Christian spirituality; the male body in extremis; loyalty to the imperial hierarchy; and a deep interest in establishing James Fitzjames as a heroic figure for posterity. In this paper, I aim to uncover various meanings embedded in this romance, place it into the ongoing literary afterlife of the Franklin Expedition, and demonstrate some of the insights it can offer regarding Markham’s role as a vital figure in the history of polar exploration

Afterlife · Art · Art history · Chivalry · Fantasy · Ideology · Literature · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Romance · Alexander von Humboldt Studies · Classics · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Polar Research and Ecology

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