Overview

Adventurous and wilful, the swashbuckling Martin Frobisher was both a brave sea-commander who served Elizabeth I with distinction and a privateer who single-mindedly pursued his own interests. This highly entertaining biography provides the first complete picture of the life and exploits of Frobisher, from his voyages in search of the fabled Northwest Passage to his courageous resistance to the Spanish Armada and his activities as privateer and sometime pirate. The book explores Frobisher's vigorous personality and its manifestation in the turbulence of his career and his impact on others. It also illuminates the robust world of maritime enterprise in the sixteenth century, when the shifting objectives of the Elizabethan age brought together felons, merchants, and great officers of state. James McDermott, a leading authority on Martin Frobisher and the Northwest Passage, offers a riveting account of the explorer, based on all extant manuscript and documentary sources. McDermott sets aside the distortions of Frobisher's popular reputation as a hero and offers instead a richly detailed portrait of a fascinating but flawed man whose ceaseless search for wealth and fame defined his extraordinary life.

Full Product Details

9780300083804

Table of Contents

Reviews

I have read nothing that provides a better sense of the demimonde in which sea-dogs like Frobisher lived. This is an immensely entertaining biography. William S. Maltby, University of Missouri

The first major biography of the early English explorer since William McFee's widely purchased 1928 Life of Sir Martin Frobisher . Frobisher, a semi-literate man with no skills, prospects or other faculty to recommend him, failed early on at conventional merchant trading and, despite his modern reputation as a hero and explorer, actually spent the majority of his life in a different profession: privateering (i.e., the state-sanctioned theft of other nations' trading vessels and cargoes). In his late 30s, however, Frobisher managed to reinvent himself as a visionary explorer, making two trips to the New World in search of the (nonexistent) Northwest Passage. In spite of his failure, Frobisher's reputation as a sea captain grew, and for the rest of his life he was repeatedly called on to assist in England's maritime offensives. He was ultimately made an Admiral of the Royal Navy, and suffered a mortal wound while leading a charge on a Spanish fort. McDermott argues that Frobisher's character flaws were often his best asset and that his arrogance, unscrupulousness, and single-minded fearlessness saved him more than once where more balanced men would have fallen prey to equivocation. His cold-heartedness served him poorly, though, in the end: having failed utterly to provide for his first wife and children (who died in a poorhouse after he abandoned them), his second marriage produced no children and his hard-won estate was quickly squandered after his death. Intriguing if long-winded. (4 b&w maps and charts) (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

James McDermott is an independent scholar and former special adviser to the Canadian Museum of Civilization's Meta Incognita Project.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available