Resurrecting Dr. Moss: The Life and Letters of a Royal Navy Surgeon, Edward Lawton Moss MD, RN, 1843-1880 chronicles the life and death of Edward Lawton Moss, a Royal Navy surgeon on the last great British north polar expedition of the nineteenth century. Arctic historians and bibliophiles are familiar with Moss's account of the 1875-76 British Arctic Expedition, published under the title Shores of the Polar Sea, but little has been known about Moss himself. Now, thanks to Paul Appleton's painstaking research, his life has taken shape in this well-crafted biography.

Relying heavily...