Resolute

<B>Few know that the president’s desk in the Oval Office plays a part in one of the world’s most extraordinary sagas; in <I>Resolute</I>, noted historian Martin Sandler brings the story to light.</B><BR/>  <BR/> After Sir John Franklin and his ships disappeared in the Arctic while seeking the Northwest Passage, 39 rescue missions were launched, including one by the <I>Resolute</I>, the Royal Navy’s finest vessel. In 1854, it became locked in the ice and was abandoned. A year later, a Connecticut whaling ship discovered it drifting 1,200 miles away, a 600-ton ghost ship. The whalers boarded the <I>Resolute</I> and steered it through a ferocious hurricane back to Connecticut. The US government re-outfitted the ship and returned it to Queen Victoria, who, in 1879, had its best timbers made into a desk for President Rutherford B. Hayes—a desk still in use today. Rare photographs, paintings, engravings, and maps illustrate the book throughout. This edition is updated with a new chapter on the discovery of Franklin’s ships, the HMS <I>Erebus</I> and the HMS <I>Terror</I>, in 2014 and 2016 in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.<BR/>  <BR/><B>This legendary maritime epic is perfect for fans of David Grann’s <I>The Wager</I> and Hampton Sides’s <I>The Wide Wide Sea</I>.</B>