Frequently described within his own lifetime as the most interesting figures of the nineteenth century, the explorer Sir Richard Burton was one of the greatest to come out of England.

'We had seen God in His splendours, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.'

– Ernest Shackleton on  the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Civil servant, naval secretary, developer, publicist, settler, author and all-round-adventurer John Barrow was understandably a man of many talents.  Here we take a look at how these skills drove forward the rapid expansion of the British Empire at the turn of the 19th Century.  

Through the nineteenth century, interest in the North Polar region was stimulated by various reasons: exploration for a North-West Passage linking the Atlantic and the Pacific, the search for the lost Franklin Expedition, territorial expansion, and the spreading of Christianity.

From a workhouse in Wales to establishing one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, the story of Henry Stanley’s life (1841-1904) was as unlikely as anything in Victorian pulp fiction.

The industrial revolution in the United Kingdom spawned a host of great British explorers - whether through wealth or technological advances. These included the Scotsman James Bruce who sought the sources of the Nile in the 1770s and, at the time may have been more renowned than Captain Cook. A copy of the book which inspired his great adventure has now found its way into our bookshop.