At the Mountains of Madness,

Lovecraft, H. P. in At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1964.
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First published in 1931, this phantasmagoric combination of science fiction and horror novel is located on the high plateau of Antarctic, reached by airplane, but discovering the world’s highest mountains and remains of an ancient ‘civilization’ come back to life and destructive of the expedition.

The Arctic Whalers.

Lubbock, Basil. Glasgow: Brown, Son and Ferguson, 1937.
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An engaging history of Arctic whaling.

English Writings about the New World,

Maclaren, I. S. in History of the Book in Canada. Volume 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. p. 33-.
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p. 38: At least by the nineteenth century, most expeditions of exploration considered a well-stocked library an essential component of their cargo. Obviously, those in ships could afford a greater tonnage; just how many men on Franklin’s two land expeditions hauled books and charts over portages and across the tundra remains a nice question. Certainly, when the first expedition was reduced in the fall of 1821 to a straggling line of men marching back from Bathurst Inlet to the hoped-for refuge of Fort Enterprise, a copy of Samuel Hearne’s A Journey from the Prince of Wales’s Fort, in Hudson’s Bay, to the Northern Ocean, the only book then available about the region, remained part of the load. The party of twenty men lost their way more than once. Were they consulting the charter in the inferior but lighter-weight octavo edition of Hearne’s book, issued in Dublin in 1796? It would have made a more logical traveling companion than the larger quarto first edition (London, 1795). Yet the map in the octavo showed Hearne’s return route across the Barrens differently from the first edition’s map. The discrepancy could have confused Franklin, whose men suffered more than one delay, and contributed to the number of deaths. Certainly, the matter of a book’s size bears materially on this dramatic possibility.

Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.

Manby, George William. London: G. and W.B. Whittaker, 1822.
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Description of an interesting if unsuccessful experiment to adapt a life-saving device to a “gun-harpoon to attack whales.” This was during a summer voyage of Scoresby aboard the Baffin. As often in whaling journals, especially during summer months, there is nothing here about leisure or professional reading by the men other than Scriptural readings, accompanied by standard invocations of providence.

The Retrospect; Or, Review of Providential Mercies

Marks, Richard. [pseud. Aliqius.]. : with Anecdotes of Various Characters. From the Seventeenth London Edition. New York: Robert Carter, 1841.
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I know almost nothing about this book, its author, his ship, his pseudonym, or the attribution to him. My guess is he was a British Naval officer, possibly even a chaplain of firm pious and dogmatic conventions. He did resign from the Navy to take orders, presumably in the Anglican Church. This work is part of the genre of hortatory narratives of damnation, salvation, and the workings of providence. Although they grow tedious in time, although possibly inspirational to some, I’ve given a couple of longer narratives here to give the full flavor of the genre. I leave further research to others.

A Man-of-War Library,

Melville, Herman. in White-Jacket, or The world in a Man-of-War. (New York: Library of America, 1983) p. 522-24:.
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Chapter 41. A Man-of-War Library

Moby Dick, or The Whale.

Melville, Herman. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. New York: Modern Library, 1930.
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Among so many other things, Moby Dick is a key text on the reading of sailors, especially the quote on p. 159, and this edition with Kent’s wood engravings is especially desirable.

Redburn: His First Voyage, being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service

Melville, Herman. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern-Newberry, 1969.
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p. 47-8: And I remembered reading in a magazine, called the Sailors’ Magazine, with a sea-blue cover, and a ship painted on the back, about pious seamen who never swore, and paid over all their wages to the poor heathen in India; and how that when they were too old to go to sea, these pious old sailors found a delightful home for life in the Hospital, where they had nothing to do, but prepare themselves for their latter end. And I wondered whether there were any such good sailors among my ship-mates; and observing that one of them laid on deck apart from the rest, I thought to be sure that he was one of them: so I did not disturb his devotions: but I was afterwards shocked at discovering that he was only fast asleep, with one of the brown jugs by his side.

Life Onboard an Emigrant Ship: Being a Diary of a Voyage to Australia.

Mereweather, John Davies. London: T. Hatchard, 1852.
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The Rev. Mereweather of the Anglican Church saw it as his unpaid duty to provide moral leadership to the “poorer classes” being conveyed to Australia. Proceeds from its sale would go to the Female Emigrant Society for that purpose.

And the Whale is Ours: Creative Writing of American Whalemen.

Miller, Pamela A. Boston: David R. Godine: Kendall Whaling Museum 1979.
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A book of extensive excerpts of whalemen’s own escape literature, their own personal journals, often sentimental claptrap about home, love, and death, but best when devoted to their trade of whaling which they tended to depict accurately and realistically.