p. 68, Friday March 8, 1912: After tea I fitted up the batten floor of the canoe (which was not loaded) as a bookshelf, & Hoadley opened the Library—some of the books damp. Rather disappointed in them. Not a poet in the lot. [Footnote 19, p. 291: The ‘Library’ was a selection of books donated by a rich benefactor, Campbell Mackellar.]
Mawson’s Forgotten Men: The 1911-1913 Antarctic Diary of Charles Turnbull Harrisson.
Harrisson, Charles Turnbull. Edited by Heather Rossiter. Miller’s Point, NSW: Pier 9, 2011.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
South with Mawson
Laseron, Charles F. in Antarctic Witness, introduced by Tim Bowden. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson, 2000. (With Frank Hurley’s Shackleton’s Argonauts.).
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
First published in 1947, Laseron’s account of Mawson’s AAE is a gentle and generally optimistic account, even when describing Mawson’s perilous journey.
Vixere Fortes: A Family Archives.
Madigan, David Cecil. Kingston, Tasmania: Self-published, 2000.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This family history of Australian Madigans includes a long chapter (p. 234-+387) on Cecil Madigan, a member of Mawson’s AAE team (1911-14). The latter is based on Cecil’s diaries which are very harsh on Mawson’s leadership and his ability to get the best out of his men. There are a good number of notes about reading:
The Home of the Blizzard, Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914.
Mawson, Sir Douglas. Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: Heinemann, [1915].
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Mawson is certainly one of the legendary explorers of the Heroic Age, one who participated in a number of important expeditions, starting with Shackleton’s Nimrod journey. His expeditions were also among those best supplied with books and other reading matter.
Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries.
Mawson, Douglas. Edited by Fred Jacka & Eleanor Jacka. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Introduction emphasizes Mawson’s faith in “Providence,” and notes that his very survival reduced the emotional impact that Scott’s death had on the public: World War I, followed by world depression, diverted public interest from the achievements of Douglas Mawson and other scientists and explorers in the Antarctic, and formed a break between the ‘heroic era’ and the ‘mechanical era’ in the history of Antarctic exploration. (p. xlii).
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration.
Roberts, David. New York: Norton, 2013.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A straightforward rehash of the Mawson story, at somewhat greater length than others, but competently done. He doesn’t neglect the books and reading which is fairly well documented for this expedition. He makes the mistake of taking Huntford as gospel truth, assuming for example Kathleen Scott’s affair with Nansen. He also disparages Bickel’s Mawson’s Will, though that book is a much more dramatic telling of Mawson’s story.
Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer: The Life of Herbert Dyce Murphy.
Rossiter, Heather. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A thoroughly fascinating account of a participant in Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911 which thoroughly debunks Mawson, only slightly more gently than Huntford did Scott.
Still No Mawson: Frank Stillwell’s Antarctic Diaries 1911-1913.
Stillwell, Frank. Edited by Bernadette Hince. Canberra, AUS: Australian Academy of Science, 2012.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Frank Stillwell was geologist on Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14. His diaries present him as a mild-mannered somewhat recessive personality, but they are candid enough to include several critical comments about the leader as moody, irascible, inconsistent, and arbitrary. Most of his comments on reading are confined to the period of the austral night of May to August 1912, and are mostly notes of what other people were reading, including Mawson reading aloud from Aurora Australis and South Polar Times (p. 49), Mawson reading his lectures on Polar exploration (p. 80), Mawson reading Robert Lewis Stevenson (p. 83-84), Madegan reading ‘Lady Betty across the water’ (p. 85), Mawson reading Kipling on the Flag (p. 86), and Mawson reading Robert Service’s The Trail of ‘98 over a few days (p. 89-92). These reading references generally cease with the gradual return of light in August/September.
Griffith Taylor: Visionary Environmentalist Explorer.
Strange, Carolyn and Alison Bashford. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2008.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Taylor was born in England but went to Australia at age 12, where he was a student of Edgeworth David, before studying in Cambridge 1907-09 (Emmanuel College). This biography presents him as a brilliant scientist but irascible, vain glorious, and sometimes mean-spirited. A geologist turned geographer he became an ardent geographic determinist, seeing both nature and man determined by their natural environment. He went on the Terra Nova expedition with Scott, and wrote about it in his With Scott: the Silver Lining, the silver lining being the scientific accomplishments of the expedition.
Journeyman Taylor: The Education of a Scientist.
Taylor, Griffith. London: Hale, 1958.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Has three or four short chapters on his participation in Scott’s Terra Nova expedition.
Douglas Mawson Book List 1907–09
Mawson, Douglas. from Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries.
- 1907-09 British Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Nimrod).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Included in Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries is a list of books included in the equipment of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1908-09, led by Shackleton aboard Nimrod in which Mawson served as “Physicist” of the expedition. The books are mentioned in Mawson’s Antarctic Diaires, ed. By Fred & Eleanor Jacka (Sydney 1988) p. 6 under the entry for 12 January 1908. The original pencil ms. diary is Notebook 2 (16 December 1908 – 10 February 1909, entitled “Douglas Mawson, his diary of journey from depot on shore of Ross Sea, N of Drygalski Glacier to South Magnetic Pole” (Jacka, p. xiii). The handwritten list is in most cases quite specific about the edition and these have been relatively easy to identify In the following transcripts of this list, the original text appears in boldface, followed by imprints for the likely editions, transferred from the international data bases of RLIN, WorldCat, or COPAC. In trying to identify probable editions included we have favored the British editions most likely available in Australia, and editions closest in time to the outset of the expedition. Some editions cannot be identified (e.g. the Koran or “several scientific pamphlets”) and are so noted. Some physical volumes are still extant and where known that has been indicated as well.
Douglas Mawson Book List 1911-14
Mawson, Douglas. from Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Another two-page typed list was prepared for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14 of which Mawson was the leader; some of those physical books are shown in the Jacka edition of the diaries, the 7th plate following p. 62, depicting Winter Quarters at Cape Denison. The diaries, originally held by the Mawson Institute of Antarctic Research at the University of Adelaide are now a part of the South Australian Museum. . I am most grateful to Mark Pharoah of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide for help in providing copies of the original lists.
Logbook for Grace: Whaling Brig Daisy, 1912-1913.
Murphy, Robert Cushman. New York: Macmillan, 1947.
- 1912-13 American Whaling Expedition (Daisy).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
An engaging account by a 25-year-old naturalist of a whaling voyage to South Georgia in 1912, taking the form of a log written to and for his new wife, Grace. Witty and reflective, including lots of material on his own reading and library, mostly during the ship’s passage through the tropics.
The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic expedition.
Alexander, Caroline. New York: Knopf, 1998.
- 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A succinct and well-illustrated account of the epic voyage, though not without faults (e.g. she doesn’t have Cherry in Scott’s SP journey, there is no index, and citations are wholly inadequate). But she does use Hurley photographs to good effect.
The American on the Endurance: Ice, Sea, and Terra Firma Adventures of William L. Bakewell.
Bakewell, William L. [Edited by Mary Elizabeth Rajala.] Munising, MI: Dukes Hall Publishing, 2004.
- 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Homespun memoir of a footloose and feckless wanderer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, who happened to be in Buenos Aires in 1914 when Shackleton was looking for an able bodied seaman and took Bakewell on for the voyage.