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The acclaimed novel of love, ambition, and Arctic adventure-with an introduction by Philip Pullman.
It is July 1897, at the northernmost reach of the inhabited world. Swedish inventor Gustav Crispin is determined to become the first person to set foot on the North Pole, and return, borne by hot air balloon. Making the expedition with two companions-an American journalist and a young, French-speaking adventurer-all three climb into the small wicker gondola and cuts the ropes. But as Gustav pursues his history-making ambition, and their flimsy balloon is battered by Arctic winds, his mind returns again and again to his fraught romance with the beautiful Luisa.
It is July 1897, at the northernmost reach of the inhabited world. Swedish inventor Gustav Crispin is determined to become the first person to set foot on the North Pole, and return, borne by hot air balloon. Making the expedition with two companions-an American journalist and a young, French-speaking adventurer-all three climb into the small wicker gondola and cuts the ropes. But as Gustav pursues his history-making ambition, and their flimsy balloon is battered by Arctic winds, his mind returns again and again to his fraught romance with the beautiful Luisa.
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Reviews
"The Balloonist just took me over. I loved it . . . An immensely entertaining book that is, at the same time, much more, interweaving the scientific, the sensual, and the philosophic. I couldn't put it down."
Michael Malone, Philadelphia Inquirer
"There can no longer be any question whatever that MacDonald Harris is one of our major novelists."
Los Angeles Times Book Review