The Discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. Investigator, Capt. R. M’Clure, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854.

McClure, Robert John. Edited by Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., &c…, from the Logs and Journals of Capt. Robert Le M. M’Clure. London: Longman, Brown, 1857.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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HMS Investigator was one of the ships assigned to the western end of the as yet undiscovered Northwest Passage in the search for Franklin and the hope that his expedition had made it through. By confusion or arrangant independence the Investigator proceeded without its companion ship HMS Enterprise, commanded by Richard Collinson. Caught by the ice, it returned to Hong Kong while Investigator headed eastward into the Passage. The ship spent the next three winters in winter quarters until April of 1854 when the men were found by a rescue team from HMS Resolute and they escaped to the east leaving the ship abandoned. One positive outcome, despite several deaths, was that the voyage definitively established the existence of the Northwest Passage’

Frozen Ships: The Arctic Diary of Johann Miertsching, 1850-1854.

Miertsching, Johann. Translation and introduction by L. H. Neatby. New York: St. Martin’s Pres, 1967.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Quite a riveting account of the Investigator Franklin search expedition by a German Moravian minister, pious but human, who was assigned primarily as an interpreter. His reading naturally centers around scripture and tracts, but he has a healthy interest in most shipboard doings.

The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N.

Traill, Henry Duff. London: John Murray, 1896.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 57-58: Traill cites Beechey’s Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole of the Dorothea and Trent in which Franklin sailed: It is a most spirited narrative of a voyage the interest of which as a series of maritime adventures considerable exceeded its scientific results…. But considered as a record of manifold dangers and difficulties encountered with unflinching courage and overcome by brilliant seamanship, the story of their voyage must always hold a high place in the history of Arctic adventure.

Dr. Kane’s Voyage to the Polar Lands.

Villarejo, Oscar M. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 23: Amos Bonsall, the last living survivor of the Kane expedition, was the officer of the brig ‘Advance’ who was in charge of making daguerreotypes for the expedition. Although the U.S. Navy had provided the ‘Advance’ with the apparatus for taking daguerreotypes of the arctic scenes which Bonsall and his companions were to encounter at unprecedented latitudes, the labors of Bonsall as the ship’s photographic chronicler came to a disastrous end in the year 1855. As Bonsall says…, the results of his work ‘were lost on our return. The box containing the daguerreotypes was put upon a sledge on the ice, and was carried away, together with the whole collection of Arctic birds, which had been prepared with great care for the Academy of Natural Science. This was an irreparable loss, and one to this day I have never ceased to regret.’ [See Rudolf Kersting, The White World, “After Fifty Years.”]

Cosmogony: or Thoughts on Philosophy.

Merrill, John. East Canaan, NH: Published by G. F. Kimball, 1860.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Merrill was apparently on Kane’s 2d expedition for which he kept a journal and meteorological record (p. 14), and worked with Dr. Vreeland in observing auroras (p. 18-9, citing Kane I, p. 425)

The Franklin Expedition from First to Last.

King, Richard. London: John Churchill, 1855.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

King was among the most ascerbic critics of most explorers other than himself, carrying his battles through the press and elsewhere. His expedition was ???

Overland to Starvation Cove: With the Inuit in Search of Franklin 1878-1880.

Klutschak, Heinrich. Trans. and edited by William Barr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. xix, re McClintock’s finding of the boat: In the boat lay two skeletons, both minus the skull, as well as five watches, two double-barrelled guns, and some small books including a Bible and a copy of The Vicar of Wakefield.

Elisha Kent Kane and the Seafaring Frontier

Mirsky, Jeannette. . Edited by Oscar Handlin. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 55-56, on setting off on the first Grinnell expedition: I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen clothing…constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The Terror, a Novel.

Simmons, Dan. (New York: Little, Brown, 2007).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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A completely fanciful attempt to explain what might have happened to the Franklin expedition.

Search for John Franklin. (From the private journal of an officer of the Fox.

Young, Allen William. Cornhill Magazine. Vol. I, no. 1. (London: Smith Elder, 1860) p. 96-121, with folding map and engraving.
  • 1857-59 British Private Expedition of Franklin Search (commanded by Frederick McClintock aboard Fox).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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This is an account of the wintering of the Fox in 1857-58 in the Davis Strait, by the second officer:

Seasons with the Seahorses; Or, Sporting Adventures in the Northern Seas.

Lamont, James. New York: Harper, 1861.
  • 1858-59 British Private Journeys of "Sport and Discovery" (James Lamont).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 80, in a description of the cabin: As for reading, it is next to impossible, for I defy any body to read long sitting on a locker nine inches broad; also, the bunks are too dark, and if we try to read in them we generally go to sleep.