Synopses & Reviews
Here is the true story of how the first European colony in the New World was lost to history, then found again three hundred years later. England's first attempt at colonizing the New World was not at Roanoke or Jamestown but on a mostly frozen, pocket-sized island in the Canadian Arctic. Queen Elizabeth I called that place Meta Incognita -- the Unknown Shore. Backed by Elizabeth I and her key advisors, including the legendary spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham and the shadowy Dr. John Dee, the erstwhile pirate Sir Martin Frobisher set out three times across the North Atlantic, in the process leading what is still the largest Arctic expedition in history.
In this brilliantly conceived dual narrative, Ruby interweaves Frobisher's saga with that of the nineteenth-century American Charles Francis Hall, whose explorations of this same landscape enabled him to hear the oral history of the Inuit, passed down through generations. It was these stories that unlocked the mystery of Frobisher's lost colony.
Review
"Robert Ruby . . . has skillfully interwoven the tale of the Frobisher fiasco and Hall's discovery of its traces."
--The Washington Post
"A highly readable book."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Gripping, entertaining, and memorable . . . Ruby's story has all the excitement of adventure travel . . ."
--Baltimore Sun
About the Author
Robert Ruby, author of
Jericho, has worked as the
Baltimore Sun bureau chief in Paris and the Middle East. He now lives in Baltimore and is an editor at the newspaper.