Shortly after his return, Cook launched a shrewd campaign designed to reestablish his claim and throw the blame for his discredit on a moneyed conspiracy by what he called “The Arctic Trust” that backed Peary.  To this end he went to Chicago and cast himself in the lead of a self-financed melodramatic film intended to dramatize Peary’s maltreatment of him.    He appeared with it on the vaudeville stage and made shocking allegations implying that Peary had sired children with an Eskimo mistress while on his expeditions.  Cook also planned to publish a book that would not only contain an account of his polar attainment, but also expose the conspiracy he said was arrayed against him.      Cook hired T. Everett Harré to rework his material and represent it to various publishers, but Cook’s stock was so low that no publisher would touch it.  So Cook established the Polar Publishing Company to publish his polar narrative and manage the series of lectures he planned to give once it was released.         The newspapers, which knew nothing of the tampering of Hampton's with Cook's series, simply could not fathom how he could be claiming the Pole once again.  Nevertheless, the Polar Publishing Company's letterhead boldly proclaimed Dr. Cook's book, My Attainment of the Pole, as "the sensation of the decade—eagerly awaited for two years."  When it appeared on August 1, 1911, it proved less than that to most reviewers.     The New York Times, which had backed Peary in his dispute with Cook, dismissed it as a total fantasy.  Less biased reviewers found the book filled with bombastic language and inexplicable mistakes.  Despite its generally negative reception, Cook set off on a tour of the West to promote the new book.    His lectures were sympathetically received and were a considerable success but failed to move many books at a pricey $3 ($62 today) a copy.  Cook brought out a cheaper version the next year, correcting some errors that had appeared in the crucial calculations of his position on his journey toward the Pole.

«- Dr. Cook's Confession At the front of the stage -»