Toughing it Out: The Adventure of a Polar Explorer and Mountaineer.

Hempleman-Adams, David. London: Orion, 1992.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
    Arctic Reading: General
    Maritime Reading
    Whalemen's Reading
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Includes solo trip to South Pole, yacht trip to South Magnetic Pole, and various North Pole attempts. Mills calls him a “pole-grabber” and his great disappointment is failure to achieve the North Pole.

The Hookers of Kew 1785-1911.

Allan, Mea. London: Michael Joseph, 1967.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Joseph Hooker was part of the Erebus and Terror Antarctic expedition led by James Clark Ross, an expedition poorly equipped for scientific investigation.

Melville in the South Seas.

Anderson, Charles Roberts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Melville joined the navy in August 1843, and joined the United States in Honolulu in 1844, spending fourteen months on U.S. naval duty between Honolulu and Boston, arriving there in October 1844.

The Church and the Sailor: A Survey of the Sea-Apostolate Past and Present.

Anson, Peter F. London: John Gifford, 1948.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Catholic missions to seamen clearly lagged behind the Protestant efforts throughout the 19th century, most Catholic activity as outlined here occurring in the late 19th century and concentrating on the liturgical rather than literary needs of seamen. There was some interest in developing seaman’s institutes, including some reading rooms, but the efforts seem modest at best.

The Search for the North Pole; Or, Life in the Great White World….

Baldwin, Evelyn Briggs. Chicago, IL: Sold only by subscription, 1896.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Baldwin’s papers are at the Library of Congress (q.v.); this book was written before some of his expeditionary work. Interestingly, he seems to have been an ardent Freemason and his chapter XLVI “Lovers of the Arts and Sciences: Free and Accepted Masonry in Arctic Exploration,” lists a number of explorers who shared that association: Kane, Hayes, Greely, Melville, Gilder, and Lt. Peary (with whom he later squabbled. See p. 507-12.)

The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909

Berton, Pierre. New York, Viking, 1988. [Penguin Books ed., 1989].
  • Arctic Reading: General
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The late Pierre Berton (d. 2016) was a Canadian writer on northern affairs combining a lyrical capacity to capture the history of the North with a critical sympathy and perhaps undue haste. Here he covers a century of exploration, ending in the middle of the “Heroic Age” with Peary’s last expedition.

Arctic and Antarctic: A Prospect of the Polar Regions.

Bertram, Colin. Cambridge: Heffer, 1957.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 121: Outside the expedition’s little home the land is Nature’s own; there are no man-made contrivances issuing forth smoke and filth, no noise of wheels and engines, no newspapers lying and spreading scandals, and no ugliness of any kind. The land is as God made it, filled with peace and beauty.

Gender on Ice.

Bloom, Lisa. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1993.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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A study of gender bias in polar exploration and its depiction in the National Geographic.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

Bown, Stephen R. . Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Poorly documented, totally derivative (mainly from NY Times), this book is riddled with errors, but generally an engaging and respectful biography. Repeats story of Amundsen’s teenage reading of everything he could find on polar exploration, but adds something about a voyage from Spain to Florida: He is careful to emphasize Amundsen’s careful reading of fellow explorers and to use that information to give himself an extra edge. For that Amundsen probably gets insufficient credit.

The Log of a Sea-Waif: Being Recollections of the First Four Years of My Sea Life.

Bullen, Frank (Franklin) Thomas. New York: D. Appleton, 1899.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 20: There were no books on board of reading matter of any kind, except the necessary works on navigation on the captain’s shelf; so it was just as well that I could take some interest in our surroundings, if I was not to die mentally as most of the sailors seemed to have done…. they seemed totally ignorant of anything connected with the wonders of the sea.

Narrative of the Overland Journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and Party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour 1842.

Burn, David. Edited by George Mackaness. Sydney: D.S. Ford, 1955.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Burn accompanied the Franklin’s on this apparently epochal journey through what are evidently difficult terrain, weather, and rivers. Burn kept a travel diary of the experience with full respect for the Governor General and his wife. Most interesting is his account of Franklin as preacher: p. 15, Sunday, 3rd May 1842: By 8 A.M., every tent, save Lady Franklin’s, had been struck, most of the knapsacks packed, and breakfast speedily thereafter dispatched. His Excellency very shortly summoned the men, and in a thrilling tone of most impressive earnestness, read the morning service, to which he added a short but very striking sermon on the edict of Darius which consigned Daniel to the den of lions. In many a gorgeous temple have I listed to the soul-reviving promises of the Scriptures, but I much question if ever the language of sacred truth was more generally or attentively heard, than whilst delivered amid drizzling rain in the wild bush, to some who had proved most reckless violators of their country’s laws [20 convicts were on the journey as carriers and palanquin-bearers]. May the truths of that holy hour live in their hearts, and sanctify our own. The weather becoming worse and worse, with every indication of an unfavourable continuance, Lady Franklin, too, remaining considerably indisposed, the tents were once more pitched, and our quarters reoccupied for the dreary uncomfortable day.

Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818-1860.

Cavell, Janice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). Studies in Book and Print Culture.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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An important if a bit theoretical approach to telling the Arctic story in the earlier nineteenth century, and especially in their serial publication (as in Dickens e.g.). She compares Arctic exploration narratives, serially reported, with serialized fiction of the period. Main emphasis is on John Franklin, from his earlier land journeys to his disappearance in 1845, and the periodic discoveries of his fate.