"This is a great book about life at remote bases in Canada's far north as seen by a young English boy who went there by himself to see the world and got more than he could have bargained for. Beautifully written." --Sir Ranulph Fiennes
"As spare, gleaming, and exhilarating as the Arctic wastes and the gentle, stoic Eskimos who had mastery of this realm . . . The book evokes the frozen seas, whale hunts, snow plains and storms that intimidated those rash enough to brave this world, and the traditions, myths, and hunting skills that contoured a bygone way of life . . . His translucent prose is a sparkling and moving record." -- Times (London)
At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company -- the Company of Gentleman Adventurers -- and was sent to an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where there was no telephone or radio and only one ship arrived each year. But the Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, and survive expeditions in ferocious winter storms. He learned their language and became so immersed in their culture and way of life that children thought he was Inuit himself. When an epidemic struck, Maurice treated the sick using a simple first aid kit, and after a number of the hunters died, he had to start hunting himself, often with women, who soon began to compete for his affections. The young man who in England had never been alone with a woman other than his mother and sisters had come of age in the Arctic.
In The Last Gentleman Adventurer Edward Beauclerk Maurice transports the reader to a time and a way of life now lost forever.
After serving in the New Zealand navy during World War II, Edward Beauclerk Maurice became a bookseller in an English village and rarely traveled again. He died in 2003 as this, his only book, was being readied for publication.
"If you like reality, The Last Gentleman Adventurer will be your cup of tea: a delicious quaff of it. Savor it!" -- Edward Hoagland
"Maurice's memoir supplies a fascinating elegy to a vanishing world." -- Telegraph
"One of those rare writers who will be remembered for turning out one great memoir/travel book . . . He relates these events in a beautiful prose that is quaintly elegant in tone but never archly so . . . Not only a gentleman but a wonderful writer who limited his output to one book, and perhaps that is why it reads so beautifully." -- Sunday Tribune (Dublin)
"Maybe he was exceptional, but the charm of his book lies in its modesty; he makes no claims for himself. His concern was to make a record of some amazing adventures and a vanishing way of life; these are woven into an eye-opening narrative that is suffused with kindliness and an attitude to growing up more restrained but more humane than that prevailing today. A gentleman adventurer indeed." -- Times Educational Supplement
"A deceptively simple account of how he grew to manhood, shaped on one hand by the brutal elements of the Arctic, on the other by the compassionate communities of Inuit who understood them . . . This is a beautifully unadorned, homespun tale with a lack of self-consciousness rare in travel literature . . . I was charmed." -- Benedict Allen, Independent on Sunday
The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic FROM THE PUBLISHER At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company and was sent to an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where there was no telephone or radio and only one ship arrived each year. But the Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, and survive expeditions through ferocious winter storms. He learned their language and became so immersed in their culture and way of life that children thought he was Inuit himself. When an epidemic struck, Maurice treated the sick using a simple first aid kit, and after a number of the hunters died, he had to start hunting himself, often with women, who soon began to compete for his affections. The young man who in England had never been alone with a woman other than his mother and sisters came of age in the Arctic.
FROM THE CRITICS William Grimes - The New York Times Mr. Maurice waited more than half a century to tell his tale. After serving in the New Zealand Navy during World War II, he settled into the quiet life of a bookseller in a small English village and died in 2003, as his only book was being readied for publication in Britain. Time and distance lend the narrative a peculiar charm. It is an old man's backward look at the young man he once was, and at a world that has all but vanished, and is all the more precious for that. Publishers Weekly Maurice was a 16-year-old boy from a struggling British family when a missionary from the Canadian Arctic paid a visit to his boarding school in 1930. Impressed by an accompanying film about life in the frozen territories, Maurice immediately sought employment as an apprentice with the Hudson's Bay Company and was sent to a remote trading post, where news from the outside world was often limited to a short weekly radio broadcast. He was so young, the local Inuit tribe nicknamed him "The Boy," but, as revealed over the course of this charming memoir, he was gradually able to win their trust and admiration. Eventually placed in charge of his own post, Maurice-having already learned the Inuit language-became increasingly involved in the daily lives of the local tribe members. His accounts of their dramatic romantic entanglements are understatedly amusing, as is the dry observation that he himself has been selected by one of the women as a suitable mate. Maurice, who died in 2003, recounts his youthful adventures in a graceful style reminiscent of the great 20th-century explorers. Though his tale is somewhat more subdued than their exploits, it proves just as engrossing. Agent, Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency (London). (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews Disarmingly captivating memoir of an Englishman's coming-of-age among the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic in the 1930s. In notable contrast to the usual memoirs of polar experiences, in which one man tells of pitting himself against the elements in a vast stretch of empty landscape, Maurice, who died in 2003, recalls his years in the frozen North as being marked most by his relationships with the locals. The youngest son of a large family of limited means, Maurice joined up with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1930 at age 16, largely to ensure his room and board at the height of the Great Depression. Although fraternization was not officially sanctioned by his employer, it was tolerated, and the pressures of survival in such isolation led Maurice to become ever closer to the small bands of Inuit hunters and their families, who would set up camp near the trading posts. In this utterly fascinating tale, Maurice recalls his time among the Inuit people (he stayed till 1939), learning about their culture and social structures, gradually becoming their peer. Unfailingly modest, Maurice relates these stories of a mostly lost world in remarkably clear and detailed prose. Local relationships, family interactions, battles against illness, trading customs and the many types of hunts-all are illuminated by this eminently likable narrator, who, unlike most of his coworkers, took the time to learn the language and ways of his hosts. And a good thing it was, since disease killed off most of the hunters one year, and Maurice became responsible for hunting enough game to keep himself, and the other survivors, alive. Delightful moments of absurdity-the popularity of Snow White as a campfire story, the flirtingthat terrified the innocent teenager-round out this tale of survival. A wholly fascinating, evocative glimpse of a harsh, lost world.
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