Stephen R. Bown has been writing about adventurers, travellers and explorers for many years. His book Scurvy was an international critical success and was selected as one of the Globe and Mail's Top 100 books of 2004. Madness, Betrayal and the Lash was shortlisted for the Lela Common Award for History and won the BC Booksellers Choice Award; and finally, Merchant Kings, was shortlisted for the 2010 Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction. He lives in the Canadian Rockies with his wife and two children.