High Mountains and Cold Seas

Born in 1911, John Richard Lane Anderson was a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction whose lifelong interest in sailing and adventure is clear from his published work. He was employed by the Guardian newspaper in Manchester from 1951 to 1967, in both journalistic and editorial roles. In 1966, Anderson led a Guardian-sponsored, small-boat expedition that built on interest in the newly 'discovered' and published 'Vinland Map'. The voyage set out to retrace the journey of Norse settlers from Greenland to the north-eastern seaboard of America. With publication of The Vinland Voyage in 1967, Anderson retired from journalism to concentrate on his own career as an author. His research for the voyage opened his correspondence with H.W. Tilman, an acknowledged expert in high-latitude small-boat voyages, and they remained friends and correspondents long after the voyage, with Anderson even attempting, unsuccessfully, to persuade Tilman to embark upon an autobiography. Anderson reflected on man's exploring instinct in The Ulysses Factor in 1970, illustrating his central hypothesis with a selection of biographical studies of explorers-some household names, others more obscure. One chapter is dedicated to the life and times of H.W. Tilman, considered by Anderson to be the very embodiment of his Ulysses factor. In 1978, the heirs to Tilman's estate commissioned Anderson to write a biography, giving him full access to their late uncle's books, letters and personal papers. With his health failing, High Mountains and Cold Seas was to be Anderson's final work and he died in 1981, shortly after it was first published. Long out of print, High Mountains and Cold Seas has been republished as a companion volume to the new complete edition of Tilman's fifteen original works.