Two Years in the Antarctic, Being a Narrative of the British National Antarctic Expedition.

Armitage, Albert B. London: Edward Arnold, 1905.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Unlike many on the first Scott expedition, Armitage had previous polar experience as second in command of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition (Franz Josef Land) and in the rescue of Nansen in 1895. He was also second in command for Scott and served as the. Discovery navigator. His diaries show some ambiguities in his relationships with Scott, but this is a very respectful account, devoid of many of the pieties which blemish so many expedition narratives.

Pilgrims on the Ice: Robert Falcon Scott’s First Antarctic Expedition.

Baughman, T. H. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 27: for the Discovery expedition, the Executive Committee of the RGS commissioned an Antarctic Manual, “an idea that hearkened back to the British Arctic expedition of 1875. Edited by George Murray, it dealt with fields of science to be investigated, and was well received.”

Saga of the “Discovery.

Bernacchi, Louis Charles. London: Blackie, 1938.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Bernacchi was an Australian/Belgian explorer, another veteran of the heroic age of polar exploration, having participated in Borchgrevink’s Southern Cross expedition, Scott’s Discovery expedition, as well as journeys to Africa and Peru. He was also the biographer of Lawrence Oates, who died on Scott’s last expedition.

A Very Gallant Gentleman.

Bernacchi, Louis Charles. (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1935). [First published 1933].
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This is Bernacchi’s hagiographic biography of Capt. Lawrence Oates, who died with Scott on the 1912 South Pole expedition [“I may be some time”], recalled more than 20 years later. Bernacchi, who was aboard the first Scott expedition on Discovery, idealized Scott “a leader with no desire for publicity or cheap notoriety. A man of high ideals…, The new expedition was no mere dash to the Pole to snatch priority from rival explorers, though the hope of this laurel leaf in the crown of adventure was an added spur to natural ambition” (p. 50).

The Blizzard. Newspaper of the Discovery

May 1902. SPRI MS 859. Illus.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Title page: Never mind The Blizzard I’m all right.

Discovery

In an exhibition at the Discovery Center in Dundee, Scotland.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

In the exhibition at the Discovery Center in Dundee, Scotland, is a copy of Gulliver’s Travels given to Scott by Clements Markham. “C R Markham—this book went with me to the Arctic region. 1850. Presented to Robert F. Scott with all good wishes July 1901.” Likely to have been aboard Discovery, for Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904.

Discovery press clippings

Probably compiled by Emily Scott, in a volume of mounted clippings [SPRI MSS 735/1] with one loose section of four pages at rear with NZ press coverage of “The Antarctic Expedition. The Arrival of the Discovery.” [off Lyttleton Heads, and Christchurch].
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 1, col. 2: [no date] Our Wellington correspondent telegraphs that Sir James Hector of the Canadian Palliser expedition in 1857-1859, has sent to the Discovery a large number of scientific works bearing upon New Zealand. The books sent include a complete set (33 volumes) of the transactions of the New Zealand Institute. These books will greatly assist the members of the expedition in their observations and researches.

The Voyages of the ‘Morning’

Doorly, James G. S. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1995. [First published London: Smith, Elder, 1916].
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

The Morning was a relief ship for Scott’s Discovery expedition. Notable for its piano, given by Clements Markham (the carpenter cut it in half to get it into the wardroom), for the song texts given in the book, apparently composed by Doorly, and the key role of the piano. Doorly was a close friend of Teddy Evans and it was Evans’s influence on Clements Markham that helped get him posted to the Morning and involved in freeing Discovery from the heavy ice of McMurdo sound. Doorly wrote a readable autobiography called In the Wake, which devotes a couple of chapters to his Discovery experience.

Journal of a Voyage to the Arctic 1901-02. S S Discovery.

Duncan, James. By J. Duncan. Typescript of Manuscript Journal. Dundee, Scotland: Dundee Art Galleries and Museums. Human History Section, 1973?.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Duncan was a civilian shipwright from Dundee who helped build the Discovery and joined the expedition as an able bodied seaman when the ship was completed. He served as carpenter and in other construction projects (e.g., the Wind Mill) and sometimes as cook, and returned with the Morning after one year. His spelling is phonetic at best (or was it the typist’s?) so that proper names become an interesting puzzle as presented in this transcript. When at sea the journal reads much like a deck log but there is some more substance in the entries made ashore. Here are a few examples of his journal style:

Diaries and Notebooks

Ferrar, Hartley. 10 vols. SPRI MS 1264.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p 18: During the first six months, we find him poring over Drygalski, an author to whom he and several others frequently returned. In rapid succession we find him reading Ball’s The Cause of an Ice Age, Morley’s Challenger Notes, Judd’s Volcanoes, Gregory’s Great Rift Valley, Nansen’s First Crossing of Greenland, Scoresby’s Arctic Regions, Greely’s Handbook of Arctic Observation, Mill’s The Realm of Nature, Ross’s Voyage to the Southern Seas, and Howorth’s The Glacial Nightmare.

The Antarctic Manual for the Use of the Expedition of 1901.

Murray, George, editor. With a Preface by Sir Clements R. Markham…, Presented to the Expedition by the Royal Geographical Society. London: Royal Geographical Society, 1901.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. vii: Baron Nordenskiöld has told me that, during the voyage of the Vega, when the North-East Passage was discovered, the books most in request were the “blue book” and the “white book,” as they called the Arctic manuals.

Antarctic Obsession. A Personal Narrative of the Origins of the British National Antarctic Expedition 1901-1904.

Markham, Clements. Edited and introduced by Clive Holland. Bluntisham, UK: Erskine Press, 1986.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Markham was the President of the Royal Geographical Society, and this book is based on his manuscript journal in the SPRI collection where Holland was once Librarian. It is not only a personal narrative but a vituperative one; one wonders whether Markham ever intended publication. It’s a one-sided story in the first person singular describing the feud between the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society during the planning of the Discovery Expedition, a feud over who would control the expedition, whether Scott would be in complete control or whether he would turn command over to the scientists (represented by geologist John Walter Gregory) when ashore. Markham won the battle in backing his own choice (many would argue the wrong choice) in Robert Falcon Scott. There is another side of this story but it won’t be found here in this egocentric and self-justifying account by this authoritarian martinet.

Newspaper clipping

New Zealand Press. SPRI MS 7354/1 BPC leaf 13.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Clipping from this newspaper in SPRI speaking of the “pretentious library” aboard Discovery, and noting that Shackleton had organized it. Probably from the period when Discovery was in Lyttleton, NZ November 1901. See above under Discovery.

Books contained in a box labeled ‘Books used on board Discovery no. 1.

Royal Geographical Society.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

The vicomte de Bragelonne by A. Dumas Owd Bob by Alfred Ollivant Emerson’s Essays (Selections) The Newcomes by Thackeray Vixen by Miss Braddon The Poetical works of Robert Burns vol. III (entry on fly-leaf, The Discovery from H.R.M.) Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson (entry on fly-leaf R.F.S. 1901) The Primrose Path by Miss Oliphant (entry printed in pencil on fly-leaf: “This book was part of the library of the Terra Nova captain R. F. Scott) The Egoist by G. Meredith Diana of the Crossways by G. Meredith Round the World on a Wheel by J. Foster Fraser (These three books have on the fly-leaf, R. Scott Terra Nova 1910. not in Capt. Scott’s hand. Slip of paper, bookmark?, found in Diana of the Crossways with tiny drawings of a bird and some insects, with initials P.M.S. H.R.M. is Hugh Robert Mill, meteorologist & friend of W.S. Bruce. [courtesy Innes Kinreigh] [Read through leaf 455—may return to it, but not too promising for reading matter. DS]