38 degrees 27 minutes to 90 degrees 00 minutes, and back.
Matthew Alexander Henson went as far north as the earth allows, and came home two degrees above where he began. Five novels follow him from a Maryland freedman's field to the top of the world and back to a customs house in New York.
Each book takes its title from a latitude. 38°27' North. 77°41' North. 87°06' North. 90°00' North. And then 40°49' North, which is Harlem, and lower than the one before it.
Narrative history in Henson's own voice, anchored to the documented record. 462,000 words across five volumes.
The five novels
The Runaway and the Sea. A mother dead when he is five, a Maryland field, a Baltimore harbour, and a captain named Katie Hines who teaches a cabin boy to read.
Brother to the Ice. Greenland, and the winters that made him. He learns the language, the sledges, and the ice from the Inughuit, who are not scenery in this book.
Eighty-Seven North. The closest anyone had come, and not close enough. A decade of ice and what it cost.
Ninety North. April 1909. He is in the lead party, and by most accounts the first of them to stand on the spot.
True North. Forty-five years between the Pole and the handshake, spent as a messenger in a customs house while another man collected the medals.
Bought separately that is $39.95. The series is $30.
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