Nelson.

Walder, David. (New York: Dial Press, 1978).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. xii: Meanwhile, The Times of October 10, 1843, reported the presence in Exeter of a rather unusual survival from Trafalgar. Mrs Sara Frank Pitt, the widow of a marine, had been on board Victory, and during the battle had been employed with other sailors’ wives in the customary duty of carrying powder up from the magazines to the guns. Hearing a false report of her husband’s death, she had rushed on deck to be reassured by his presence, but to see Nelson fall, mortally wounded. She subsequently buried a boy of hers at Alexandria and another near Sicily, and now in her old age, without child or husband, she I left totally destitute, without kin or associate, with no consolation but the recollection of the glorious bloody scenes in which she spent the early portion of her married life.’ Naturally enough, perhaps, Mrs Pitt was not anxious to join the procession of 200 Trafalgar veterans now being collected together for the unveiling ceremony [in Trafalgar Square], but she wished it to be known that if there should be ‘any distribution in largesse in commemoration of the victory’ she would ‘be thankful to receive a portion’.

My Life among the Bluejackets.

Weston, Agnes. (London: James Nisbet, 1911).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Agnes Weston initiated the English Sailor’s Rest institutions in Devonport and Portsmouth, where she provided food, lodging, reading and smoking rooms, and evangelical teaching for naval enlisted personnel. Her work here is distinguished by overweening piety, celebration of the heroism and probity of most of the royal navy members, a strong message of teetotalism and salvation. She published tracts and pamphlets such as Ashore and Afloat, and her Monthly Letters.

The History of the British Navy: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

Yonge, Charles Duke. Second edition. Three Volumes. (London: Richard Bentley, 1866).
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Volume III: p. 48, on Parry’s wintering over in 1818: The reindeer had not long departed when the sun disappeared likewise… it was during this gloomy period that the resources of Parry’s genius showed themselves, in the numerous contrivances with which he beguiled the minds of his followers, and, by providing them with incessant and varied occupation, preserved their health both of mind and body. He set up a theatre, in which plays were acted once a fortnight; those who could read being fully employed in learning their parts, while those less accomplished found work to their mind in preparing the fittings of the theatre, or in cutting up old sails and bunting into petticoats to disguise their messages, as well might be done, under the appearance of Miss in her teens, or Lydia Languish. He skillfully availed himself also of the desire for instruction, which the example of those who could become actors and actresses excited in their comrades, to establish a reading-school; and conducted it so successfully that before the end of the winter there was not a man in either ship who could not read…. And last of all, though in that desolate and solitary region little could arise that could fairly be entitled news, he established a weekly newspaper, of which Captain Sabine became the editor, with the whole body of officers for contributors; and which, though it necessarily partook more of the character of a magazine than of that of a newspaper, fully answered its intended purpose of furnishing employment for the leisure hours of both writers and readers.

The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, in Search of a Passage to Cathay and India by the North-West, A.D. 1576-78.

Best, George. Two volumes in one. Edited by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. (London: Argonaut Press, 1938).
  • 1576-78 The Baffin Island Voyages of Martin Frobisher.
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p. cii-ciii, re the first voyage: The ship’s library included two works of André Thevet, the French royal geographer, his Cosmography, in French, which had been published only the previous year, and his Singularités de l’Amérique, both in French and in the English translation of 1568, by Thomas Hackett, under the title The New found World or Antarctike. It included William Cunningham’s Cosmographical Glasse, published in 1559, which, to quote Professor Taylor, ‘contains little of purely geographical interest, but is notable for its exposition and illustration of the method of survey by triangulation….’ This volume and Dr Record’s Castle of Knowledge, 1556 (‘containing the explication of the sphere’), which they also took along, ‘were certainly adequate reference books for such astronomy and mathematical geography as was necessary to understand the principles of these various instruments’ (i.e. Cole’s instruments). As they took Medina’s Arte de Naviguar in the original it is to be presumed that the Master could read Spanish. The only English work included was Mandeville, ‘presumably for the sake of its account of the Far East, which was the ultimate goal of the expedition’. They also took ‘a Bible Englishe great volume’, possibly Richard Jugge’s Bishop’s Bible of 1572.

The Life of Sir Martin Frobisher.

McFee, William. (New York: Harper & Brothers, MCMXXVIII). 1928).
  • 1576-78 The Baffin Island Voyages of Martin Frobisher.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 37-8: Expense inventory of Frobisher’s first voyage in 1576 include:

The Bibliographical Miscellany.

Petheram, John, ed. 5 numbers, all printed. London: John Russell Smith, 1859.
  • 1612-13 British North-West Passage Expedition (led by Sir Thomas Button, aboard Resolution and Discovery).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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First three numbers deal with the North-West Passage and the 1612 voyage of Sir Thomas Button.

The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622.

Baffin, William. Edited with Notes and an Introduction by Clements R. Markham. London: Hakluyt Society, 1881.
  • 1612-22 British Voyages of William Baffin.
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p. 150: Wherefore I cannot but much admire the worke of the Almightie, when I consider how vaine the best and chiefest hopes of men are in thinges vncertaine ; and to speake of no other then of the hopeful passage to the North-West. How many of the best sort of men haue set their whole endeauoures to prooue a passage that ways? not onely in conference, but also in writing and publishing to the world. Yea, what great summes of money haue been spent about that action, as your worship hath costly experience of. Neither would the vain-glorious Spaniard haue scattered abroad so many false maps and journals, if they had not beene confident of a passage this way; that if it had pleased God a passage had beene found, they might haue eclipsed the worthy prayse of the adventurers and true discouerers. And for my owne part I would hardly haue beleeued the contrary vntill my eyes became witnesse of what I desired not to haue found; still taking occasion of hope on euery likelihood, till such time as we had coasted almost all the circumference of this great bay.

The Strange and Dangerovs Voyage of Captaine Thomas Iames, in His Intended Discovery of the Northwest Passage into the South Sea….

James, Thomas. London: Legatt, 1633. [Reprint in Hakluyt Society edition of the Voyages of Luke Foxe and Thomas James. Two volumes. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1894). The James account is in Vol. II, p. 451-611.].
  • 1631-32 British Search Voyage for North West Passage (Captains Luke Foxe and Thomas James of Bristol).
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p. 606, in a list of instruments provided for his voyage are a number of books: A Chest full of the best and choicest Mathematicall bookes that could be got for money in England; as likewise Master Hackluite and Master Purchase, and other books of Journals and Histories.

The Speedwell Voyage: A Tale of Piracy and Mutiny in the Eighteenth Century.>

Poolman, Kenneth. New York: Berkley Books, 2000.
  • 1720 British Privateering Voyage (aboard Speedwell).
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Not a particularly well done account of British privateering in the early 18th century, but it does mention that the Captain of the Speedwell, George Shelvocke, had a few books that guided his navigation, including Captain Woodes Rogers A Cruising Voyage Round the World (London, 1712), and A. F. Frezier’s Voyage to the South Sea and Along the Coasts of Chili and Peru (London, 1706).