A biography of Lady Jane Franklin (1791-1875), born Jane Griffin, who became the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. A traveller in her own right, she accompanied her husband when he was posted to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) as Lieutenant Governor and became known for her philanthropic work and travels in south-eastern Australia. With her encouragement, Franklin led an expedition to find the North West Passage in 1845 but the lack of news led her to lobby the Admiralty to mount a number of expeditions to ascertain its fate. Her prolific letter writing and circle of influential political contacts helped to ensure that she could raise the support and sponsorship necessary and that the expedition's fate and her husband were not forgotten. Outraged by explorer John Rae's report and the evidence he obtained from local Inuit which indicated both her husband's death and the suggestion that the crew had resorted to cannibalism in order to survive, Lady Franklin launched a campaign to preserve the reputation of and memorialise her husband. She successfully shifted the narrative around the expedition so that the disaster would become publicly understood as a heroic endeavour and her husband celebrated for the apparent discovery of the North West Passage.