Joanna Kafarowski 
The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame 
A Life of Louise Arner Boyd

The first comprehensive biography of Louise Arner Boyd — the intrepid American socialite who reinvented herself as the leading female polar explorer of the twentieth century.



Born in the late 1880s to a gritty mining magnate who made his millions in the California gold rush and a well-bred mother descended from one of New York’s distinguished families, society beauty Louise Arner Boyd was raised during a glittering era.



After inheriting a staggering family fortune, she began leading a double life. She fell under the spell of the north in the late 1920s after a sailing excursion to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next three decades, she achieved international notoriety as a rugged and audacious polar explorer while maintaining her flamboyant lifestyle as a leading society woman. Yet despite organizing, financing, and directing seven daring Arctic expeditions between 1926 and 1955, she is virtually unknown today.

Mục lục

• Illustrations


• Maps


• Prologue


• Part One: An Unlikely Heroine


• Chapter One: An Adventuress is Born


• Chapter Two: Shaped by Adversity


• Chapter Three: “Diana of the Arctic”


• Part Two: The Call to Adventure


• Chapter Four: Chasing Amundsen


• Chapter Five: The Ice Queen Cometh


• Chapter Six: Greenland Beckons


• Chapter Seven: An Obsessive Pursuit


• Part Three: Scaling the Heights


• Chapter Eight: Contributing to Science


• Chapter Nine: Honour and Glory


• Chapter Ten: The North Pole And Beyond


• Epilogue: The Legacy of Louise Arner Boyd


• Acknowledgements


• Appendix


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Photo Credits


• Index

Giới thiệu về tác giả

Joanna Kafarowski, Ph.D., is passionate about researching and writing about the lives of women in polar history. She is the author of The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd, the first comprehensive biography of a female Arctic explorer. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.