The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

In 1897, at the height of the heroic age of Arctic exploration, the visionary Swedish explorer S. A. Andr e made a revolutionary attempt to discover the North Pole by flying over it in a hydrogen balloon. Thirty-three years later, his expedition diaries and papers would be discovered on the ice.

Alec Wilkinson uses the explorer's papers and contemporary sources to tell the full story of this ambitious voyage, while also showing how the late 19th century's spirit of exploration and scientific discovery drove over 1,000 explorers to the unforgiving Arctic landscape. Suspenseful and haunting, Wilkinson captures Andr e's remarkable adventure and illuminates the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling on the ice.


About the Author

Alec Wilkinson began writing for The New Yorker in 1980. Before that he was a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and before that he was a rock-and-roll musician. He has published nine other books--two memoirs, two collections of essays, three biographical portraits, and two pieces of reporting--most of which first appeared in The New Yorker. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Prize, and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He lives with his wife and son in New York City.