Icebound On Kolguev: A Chapter In The Exploration Of Arctic Europe, To Which Is Added A Record Of The Natural History Of The Island

by Aubyn Trevor-Battye

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

536 pages, Hardcover

Published September 10, 2010

Reviews

[Oz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved this. Ignore the daunting title - it's a charmingly written account of an incredibly (but largely harmlessly) stupid man's attempt to catalogue some birds and learn a new language. He has his moments of being a Victorian Englishman, but they're decently few, and interspersed with long arguments against the status quo, praising the native people and condemning those who'd call them lesser.

Aubyn is at his best when not in a survival situation, evidenced by him losing most of the skin on his hands before his assistant realised that they could wear their extra socks as gloves. It took longer for either of them to realise that, rather than just shooting and skinning them for museums, one can also cook and eat birds. They'd eaten raw bacon before they worked that one out.

There's times when he worries the reader must be getting bored, and moves too quickly on from an account I wished he'd linger on. He talks to the reader directly a lot, especially near the end, as if he can't believe we're still there. I'll miss him. I hope he manages to catch a fish soon.