Books: A Hard Winter

ABANDONED (323 pp.)—A. L Todd—McGraw-Hill ($5.95).

In the 19th century, the Far North held for adventurous men almost the fascination that outer space holds today. As part of the first international effort to probe the mysteries of the Far North, U.S. Lieut. Adolphus Greely in 1881 led a well-equipped, 24-man team to establish a base camp on Ellesmere Island, more than 1,000 miles north of the Arctic Circle. A tall, spade-bearded Yankee from Newburyport, Mass., Greely was not alarmed when the first supply ship failed to reach them. But in the second summer, a...