Sara Diane Wheeler (born 20 March 1961) is an English travel author and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

, noted for her accounts of polar regions.

Biography

Sara Wheeler was brought up in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, England, and studied Classics and Modern Languages at

Brasenose College Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. After writing about her travels on the Greek island of

Euboea Euboea ( ; , ), also known by its modern spelling Evia ( ; , ), is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete, and the sixth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by ...

and in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, she was accepted by the

US National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is t ...

as their first female writer-in-residence at the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish ...

, and spent seven months in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. In her resultant book ''Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica'', she mentioned sleeping in the captain’s bunk in

Scott's Hut Scott's Hut is a building located on the north shore of Cape Evans on Ross Island in Antarctica. It was erected in 1911 by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910–1913 (also known as the Terra Nova Expedition) led by Robert Falcon Scott. ...

. Whilst in Antarctica she read ''

The Worst Journey in the World ''The Worst Journey in the World'' is a 1922 memoir by Apsley Cherry-Garrard of Robert Falcon Scott's ''Terra Nova'' expedition to the South Pole in 1910–1913. It has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of the difficulties of the exped ...

'', an account of the

Terra Nova Expedition The ''Terra Nova'' Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objec ...

, and she later wrote a

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

of its author,

Apsley Cherry-Garrard Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard (2 January 1886 – 18 May 1959) was an English explorer of Antarctica. He was a member of the Terra Nova Expedition, ''Terra Nova'' expedition and is acclaimed for his 1922 account of this expedition, ''T ...

. In 1999 she was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

. From 2005 to 2009 she served as Trustee of the

London Library The London Library is an Subscription library, independent lending library in London, established in 1841. Membership is open to all, on payment of an annual subscription, with life and corporate memberships also available. As of December 2023 ...

. She was frequently abroad for two years, travelled to Russia, Alaska, Greenland, Canada and North Norway to write her book ''The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic''. A

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

at the ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'' in the UK called it a "snowstorm of historical, geographical and anthropological facts". In a 2012

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

series: ''To Strive and Seek'', she told the personal stories of five various members of the

. ''O My America!: Second Acts in a New World'' records the lives of women who travelled to America in the first half of the 19th century:

Fanny Trollope Frances Milton Trollope, also known as Fanny Trollope (10 March 1779 – 6 October 1863), was an English novelist who wrote as Mrs. Trollope or Mrs. Frances Trollope. Her book, ''Domestic Manners of the Americans'' (1832), observations from a t ...

Fanny Kemble Frances Anne Kemble (later Butler; 27 November 180915 January 1893) was a British actress from a Kemble family, theatre family in the early and mid-nineteenth century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published wor ...

Harriet Martineau Harriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist.Hill, Michael R. (2002''Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives'' Routledge. She wrote from a sociological, holism, holistic, religious and ...

, Rebecca Burlend,

Isabella Bird Isabella Lucy Bishop (; 15 October 1831 – 7 October 1904) was an English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist. Alongside fellow Englishwoman Fanny Jane Butler, she founded the John Bishop Memorial Hospital in Srinagar in modern-da ...

, and Catherine Hubback, and the author's travels in pursuit of them. In 2023, Wheeler published ''Glowing Still'', a collection of essays based on her travels, and her reflections on how the world has changed in her lifetime.

Travel books

*''Evia: Travels on an Undiscovered Greek Island'' (1992) *''Chile: Travels in a Thin Country'' (1994) *''Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica'' (1997) *''The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic'' (2010) *''Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990–2010'' (2011) *''Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age'' (2019) *''Glowing Still:A Woman's Life on the Road'' (2023)

Biography books

*''Cherry: A Life of

'' (2002) *''Too Close to the Sun: The Life and Times of

Denys Finch Hatton Denys George Finch-Hatton MC (24 April 1887 – 14 May 1931) was a British aristocratic big-game hunter and the lover of Baroness Karen von Blixen (also known by her pen name, Isak Dinesen), a Danish noblewoman who wrote about him in her aut ...

'' (2006) *''O My America!: Second Acts in a New World'' (2013)

Children's book

*''Dear Daniel: Letters from Antarctica'' (1997)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheeler, Sara 1961 births Living people Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Writers from Bristol Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature English women travel writers English travel writers Travel broadcasters 21st-century British travel writers British biographers