Overview

Visitors to the Arctic enter places that have been traditionally imagined as otherworldly. The Spectral Arctic re-thinks our understanding of Arctic exploration by paying attention to the importance of dreams and ghosts in the quest for the Northwest Passage.

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9781787352476

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Reviews

McCorristine is to be congratulated for [this] novel take, what might be called the 'frozen supernatural': mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiriualists, ghosts, telepathic dreams and conversations with the dead concerning the Arctic north. --Times Higher Education

McCorristine opens avenues of analysis relevant to our contemporary understanding of the Arctic and he ends with a call to reorientate the way we think about polar explorers, emphasizing the significance they hold for us today --Times Literary Supplement McCorrestine's is an impressive and often enjoyable study of the supernatural in 19th-century Britain and the Dominions; of Arctic exploration (with many pages on the neglected Inuit); and of mechanisms by which the penny press transmitted news of both to an attentive nation. --Times Higher Education [The Spectral Arctic] is a book I can only strongly recommend - a book that is both a fascinating and page-turning read, as well as a thorough scholarly engagement with historical, cultural, and political geographies. And, given its open access availability by UCL Press, I have no doubt it will reach a wide readership. Or, in my case, it will become a book I will return to again; this is a history that is still unfolding. --ANTIPODE A deeply interesting work on the psychology of adventurers, The Spectral Arctic is a sound addition to the canon of Arctic exploration literature. --Foreword Reviews

McCorrestine's is an impressive and often enjoyable study of the supernatural in 19th-century Britain and the Dominions; of Arctic exploration (with many pages on the neglected Inuit); and of mechanisms by which the penny press transmitted news of both to an attentive nation. -- Times Higher Education McCorristine opens avenues of analysis relevant to our contemporary understanding of the Arctic and he ends with a call to reorientate the way we think about polar explorers, emphasizing the significance they hold for us today -- Times Literary Supplement A deeply interesting work on the psychology of adventurers, The Spectral Arctic is a sound addition to the canon of Arctic exploration literature. -- Foreword Reviews [The Spectral Arctic] is a book I can only strongly recommend - a book that is both a fascinating and page-turning read, as well as a thorough scholarly engagement with historical, cultural, and political geographies. And, given its open access availability by UCL Press, I have no doubt it will reach a wide readership. Or, in my case, it will become a book I will return to again; this is a history that is still unfolding. -- ANTIPODE

McCorristine is to be congratulated for [this] novel take, what might be called the 'frozen supernatural': mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiriualists, ghosts, telepathic dreams and conversations with the dead concerning the Arctic north. --Times Higher Education A deeply interesting work on the psychology of adventurers, The Spectral Arctic is a sound addition to the canon of Arctic exploration literature. --Foreword Reviews

McCorrestine's is an impressive and often enjoyable study of the supernatural in 19th-century Britain and the Dominions; of Arctic exploration (with many pages on the neglected Inuit); and of mechanisms by which the penny press transmitted news of both to an attentive nation. --Times Higher Education McCorristine opens avenues of analysis relevant to our contemporary understanding of the Arctic and he ends with a call to reorientate the way we think about polar explorers, emphasizing the significance they hold for us today --Times Literary Supplement [The Spectral Arctic] is a book I can only strongly recommend - a book that is both a fascinating and page-turning read, as well as a thorough scholarly engagement with historical, cultural, and political geographies. And, given its open access availability by UCL Press, I have no doubt it will reach a wide readership. Or, in my case, it will become a book I will return to again; this is a history that is still unfolding. --ANTIPODE A deeply interesting work on the psychology of adventurers, The Spectral Arctic is a sound addition to the canon of Arctic exploration literature. --Foreword Reviews

Author Information

Shane McCorristine FRHistS is a Lecturer in Modern British History at Newcastle University. He is an interdisciplinary cultural historian with interests in the ‘night side’ of modern experience, namely social attitudes to ghosts, dreams, death, and species extinction in the long nineteenth century. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he was educated at University College Dublin and has held several postdoctoral positions, in the UK and Ireland, including a Marie Curie Fellowship and Wellcome Trust Fellowship. He is the author of Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-seeing in England, 1750-1920 (2010) and William Corder and the Red Barn Murder: Journeys of the Criminal Body (2014).

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