A polar affair Antarctica's forgotten hero and the secret lives of penguins

Review by Choice Review

An expansive and entertaining historical tour through events of the great age of polar exploration, this work successfully unites the quest for scientific knowledge with personal curiosity. There is a good deal of autobiography included, although the author's quest is mainly for particulars about the life, naval career, and scientific pursuits of George Murray Levick, physician on Robert Falcon Scott's tragic British Antarctic expedition of 1910. Levick studied penguins up close, discovering their sexual activities. While the impact of these discoveries is hard to quantify, Levick's explorations and observations offer rich possibilities for biologist and popular science writer Davis, who does not disappoint. Thoroughly researched and replete with many splendid photographs, this is an engaging work of unusual merit. The main protagonists are Levick, Scott, and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Cameo appearances by Kathleen Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Raymond Priestly, and Fridtjof Nansen lend piquant touches to the portrayals of main characters and their search for scientific data and personal acclaim. Excursions into polar studies and British naval history enlarge the panorama of this treatise on how the search to establish a reliable biography for a pioneering scientist of penguin studies became an enthralling scientific study for the author. Summing Up: Recommended. Professionals and general readers. --Barry M. Gough, emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

In 1911, antarctic explorer George Murray Levick began the world's first serious study of penguins with the terse ""1st penguin arrives Oct. 13th."" Murray was a doctor and zoologist who accompanied Robert Scott on his last, ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. When the surviving members published their scientific results, Levick produced the first book ever published about penguins. Fast forward to 1996, when penguin biologist Davis observed what he thought was newly discovered behavior in Adélie penguins, copulation between two males. In 2011, a curator discovered an unpublished manuscript labeled ""not for publication"" describing exactly what Davis had seen. It had been suppressed. What follows is Davis' account of his quest to discover the real Levick, the story of why his manuscript was never published, and how Levick's findings relate to Davis' own research. An engaging detective story, Davis' search for the truth also enfolds the social history of the Victorian era, changing theories in the fields of evolution and animal behavior, the human side of scientific research, and tales of Antarctica.--Nancy Bent Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Biologist Davis (Professor Penguin) combines history and science seamlessly in this enthralling look at pioneering scientist George Murray Levick (1876--1956) and his discoveries about the diversity of animal sexuality. Davis, who had--he thought--discovered male homosexuality among penguins in 1996, realized 15 years later that his observation was not new. In 1914, Levick, a survivor of Robert Scott's ill-fated 1910--1912 Antarctica expedition, had written a manuscript that initially reported the same, and a slew of other taboo behaviors among the birds. But the scandal this would have caused led to Levick's book, Antarctic Penguins: A Study of Their Social Habits, the first ever about penguins, being expurgated of the offending passages. Davis tracked down a rare copy of Levick's notes in the British Natural History Museum, and was inspired to learn more about his undeservedly obscure predecessor. The end result is an entertaining look at Levick's life, including his time on the Scott expedition, and his later-in-life roles in teaching wilderness survival skills to private school students and, during WWII, British commandos. Davis injects his own research findings into the narrative, producing a biography/popular science book that will appeal equally to polar expedition buffs and zoology enthusiasts. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency. (Sept.)

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