Royds was the First Lieutenant on Scott’s Discovery expedition, and was involved in virtually all operations of the ship and the expedition, including ship’s discipline. It’s a rather ponderous (and heavy) tome but full of information about the expedition. He mentions the Cap’t. frequently but I didn’t seem to learn much about Scott from it. He frequently played the piano or pianola for a couple hours at a time. He was clearly a steady reader and names titles but gives little insight into his reactions to the books he read. Here are some examples of reading and related matters:
The Diary of Lieutenant Charles W R Royds. RN Expedition to the Arctic 1901-1904.
Royds, Charles W. R., Lieutenant. Bridwood, NSW, Australia, T. R. Royds, 2001.
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Scott’s Last Expedition. In Two Volumes. Vol. I Being the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott, R.N., C.V.O. Vol. II. Being the Reports of the Journeys and the Scientific Work Undertaken by Dr. E. A. Wilson, and the Surviving Members of the Expedition,
Scott, Robert Falcon. Arranged by Leonard Huxley, with a preface by Sir Clements R. Markham. London: Smith Elder, 1913.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
[There is a considerable difference in the lengths of the British and American first editions of these diaries which I’ve been unable to unravel or understand. Paginations below are from the London edition.]
Tragedy and Triumph: the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott’s Last Polar Expedition.
Scott, Robert Falcon. New York: Konecky & Konecky [n.d.].
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
These journals include rather little on reading. The expedition’s lecture series implies a good library available to the lecturers, all 13 of them. Subjects included mostly scientific matter: parasitology, scurvy, polar clothing, sledging diets, motor sledges, geology, volcanoes, surveying, Lololand, biology, horse management, Burma, China, India, Japan; Scott himself lectured on the icebarrier and inland ice, and on plays for the Southern Journey. Other topics were coronas, hales, rainbows and auroras, general meteorology, the Beardmore glacier, physiography, flying birds, penguins, ice problems, radium, and the constitution of matter. [see index p. 511-12]
‘Birdie’ Bowers of the Antarctic
Seaver, George. With an Introduction by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. London: John Murray, 1938.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Like Seaver’s biography of Wilson, his fellow death-mate, this is a gentle hagiography of a devout Christian and a much-loved mate. On his training ship he would sit on the main deck every evening “before the whole ship’s company,” and read his Bible for a quarter of an hour (p. 22). I found nothing else about his reading during the Terra Nova expedition, but earlier he speaks of reading and thinking a lot in his spiritual quest (p. 40), of his prayer book, and his “violent attack of skepticism” from reading Darwin’s Descent of Man (p. 47), and this in Ceylon in 1909: “I have brought my Wordsworth up here and read it a bit in my room at night, keeping one eye aloft for spiders, one of which fell on me the other night” (p. 119). He was phobic about spiders.
I Am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates—Antarctic Tragedy.
Smith, Michael. Staplehurst, Kent, UK: Spellmount [2002].
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Interesting if not well-written biography of Titus Oates, emphasizing his patrician background, his dyslexia and reading and examination problems, his love for horses, and his distaste for Scott. The Oates family gave no cooperation to the book, presumably because it ends with “A second tragedy”, the story of an illegitimate daughter about whom Oates knew nothing. He clearly didn’t do a lot of reading but he had Napier’s History of the Peninsular War and was an admirer of Napoleon (see p. 102 and 245) and had his portrait at Cape Evans.
South Polar Times
SPRI MS 505/4: Typescript.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Only copy, owned by Cherry-Garrard and largely produced by him. Introduction written later by Frank Debenham. No mention of Scott’s Polar party. “Ed., typed & illus. largely by me”—ACG. Drawings by Cherry have a remarkable delicacy.
I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination
Spufford, Francis. London, Faber and Faber, 1996.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A fascinating study of the British flirtation with the Arctic and Antarctic in both intellectual and sociological terms, including its derogation (North Pole—Arsehole). Only the last chapter, dealing with Scott’s fatal expedition, covers an actual expedition, although there is a good bit on Lady Franklin’s attempts to find Franklin’s fate.
Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott’s Marvel.
Strathie, Anne. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2012.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Biography of the sailor who went to the South Pole and then died with Scott in 1912. Brought up an evangelical whose father was a Freemason, the biography shows a gradual ebbing of his faith through the early part of his career until he was summoned by Scott from the Royal Indian Marines.
With Scott: The Silver Lining.
Taylor, Griffith. Banham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1997. Reprint of 1916 edition, intro by David Walton.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Griffith Taylor led the Western Party of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, scientifically constituting perhaps the most successful part of Scott’s fatal journey.
Journal of the lst 2 months Dec 1910, Jan 1911 of the Terra Nova expedition
Taylor, Griffith. some of which was published in the Melbourne Argus.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
[Griffith] Taylor Collection. “Journal of the lst 2 months Dec 1910, Jan 1911 of the Terra Nova expedition, some of which was published in the Melbourne Argus, and in fact he was composing this journal with that publication in mind (see p. 34).
Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard.
Wheeler, Sara. New York: Random House, 2002.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A splendid biography of one of the most valuable members of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition.
Diary of the Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic 1910-1912. An account of Scott’s last expedition edited from the original mss. in the Scott Polar Research Institute and the British Museum.
Wilson, Edward Adrian. London: Blandford Press [1972].
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
p. 69, Dec. 5, 1910: I have been reading The Illustrious Prince, which Mrs. Wigram, you remember, gave me just before leaving New Zealand, a book I have thoroughly enjoyed—and the last novel, probably, that I shall read until we are well up in the warm sunshine on the way home. If I read novels habitually there would be no diary writing. As it is, the only quiet time in the day is from 4.30 a.m. or 5 a.m. to breakfast at 8 a.m.—and my writing is all done then.
Silas: The Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright.
Wright, Charles S. (Silas). Edited by Colin Bull and Pat F. Wright. Illustrated by Pat F. Wright. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1996.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
This is a rather thin diary of the Terra Nova expedition, fleshed out by the Editor’s commentary, and diary entries from other diaries for the corresponding dates, and illustrated by charming drawings of hundreds of topical subjects, mostly animals. We know that Wright was a very serious scientist as well as a reader; little of the reading is cited here but there are a few examples:
Antarctica Unveiled: Scott’s First Expedition and the Quest for the Unknown Continent.
Yelverton, David E. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2000.
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A fairly thorough study of the Discovery expedition (1901-04), very sympathetic to Scott, managing to skewer Huntford’s speculations against Scott in a gentle way in footnote after footnote. His maps of the period are more confusing than helpful, but it is a sound study and a fairly good read. It does seem to me that his attempt to create the sense of a race between the German expedition of Drygalski and the Gauss with Scott’s ventures is purely hypothetical. And he does have a penchant for determinist chapter headings; Preordained Strategies; To the Threshold of Destiny; The Best-Laid Schemes…; Hostages in a Frozen Trap; Slings and Arrows of Misfortune; and The Expeditions Fateful Legacy.
The Southern Ice-continent: The German South Polar Expedition aboard the Gauss 1901-1903.
Drygalski, Erich von. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1989.
- 1901-03 German South Polar Expedition (Drygalski on Gauss).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Drygalski led the first German Antarctic Expedition in 1901-03, as part of Germany’s growing status in the international community with its own colonial aspirations. Its emphasis was scientific research and its chosen region the southern Indian Ocean as centered on the Kerguélen Islands.