That First Antarctic Winter: The Story of the Southern Cross Expedition of 1898-1900, as Told in the Diaries of Louis Charles Bernacchi

Bernacchi, Louis Charles. Written and Edited by Janet Crawford. Christchurch, NZ: South Latitude Research Limited, 1998.
  • 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A rather heavily edited version of Bernacchi’s diaries together with passages from To the South Polar Regions, with connecting commentary of tedious nature, until the end. Most interesting are the feuds between Borchgrevink and Bernacchi, which are well-captured in the text. Not much reference to reading, books, etc., nor the supposedly decent library aboard ship. Here are a few references:

The Krassin.

Parijourire, Maurice. Trans. by Lawrence Brown. New York: Macaulay Co., 1929.
  • 1928 Russian Rescue Operation for Nobile.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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Russian ice-breaker involved in Nobile rescue in 1928. A romanticized and heavily pro-Soviet account.

Gilded Youth: Three Lives in France’s Belle Epoque

Cambor, Kate. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.
  • 1908-10 Second French South Polar Expedition (Charcot on Pourquoi-pas?).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Focuses on three notable children of famous French families: Jeanne Hugo (granddaughter of Victor Hugo), Jean-Baptiste Charcot (son of neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot), and Leon Daudet (son of Alphonse). Chapter 8 “The Heiress and the Polar Gentleman” concerns Jean-Baptiste Charcot, his two Antarctic voyages, and his much later death by drowning off Iceland. Cambor makes about 15 relatively minor mistakes in the Charcot chapter, enough to wonder about other less-familiar parts of the book.

The Yankee Tar. An Authentic Narrative of the Voyages and Hardships of John Hoxse, and the cruises of the U.S. Frigate Constellation, …

Hoxse, John. Written by Himself. With an Extract from the Writings of Rev. John Flavel. Northampton: MA: John Metcalf, for the Author, 1840.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 7, introducing what must have been one of the first author publicity tours: Having got this work up in a handsome style, and at a great expense, I have concluded to make a tour through the principal towns in this and the adjoining states, and to call personally upon every individual who may wish to purchase one of the books, that all who do this, may rest assured there is no imposition; for it would be a hard task for aany person to counterfeit my

The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas. A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions.

McClintock, Frederick M. With maps and illustrations. (Philadelphia: J. T. Lloyd, 1860).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Two reading-related matters stand out in this account: the dependence on whalers for annual delivery of newspapers and other reading (see p. 111, 119), and the availability of an arctic library aboard the Fox, provided by the Admiralty, allowing M’Clintock to make regular references to past occurrences in polar exploration, including specific dates and places, and to verify later native accounts.

Those Greenland Days: The British Arctic Air-Route Expedition, 1930-31.

Lindsay, Martin. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1939. [First published 1931.].
  • 1930-31 British Greenland Air Route Expedition.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

A rather less engaging book than his later Sledge, but informative on an expedition to scope out air-routes across Greenland by meteorological observations on the icecap. Several reading references:

The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the ‘Fram,’ 1910-1912.

Amundsen, Roald. Two Volumes. London: John Murray, 1913.
  • 1910-12 Norwegian National Antarctic Expedition (Amundsen on Fram).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Volume I, p. 68: aboard the Fram: We carried an extraordinarily copious library; presents of books were showered upon us in great quantities. I suppose the Fram’s library at the present moment contains at least 3,000 volumes.

Mathew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873.

Grady, John.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Summary [from ABEBooks]: In becoming "a useful man" on the maritime stage, Matthew Fontaine Maury focused light on the ills of a clique-ridden Navy, charted sea lanes and bested Great Britain's admiralty in securing the fastest, safest routes to India and Australia. He helped bind the Old and New worlds with the laying of the transatlantic cable, forcefully advocated Southern rights in a troubled union, and preached Manifest Destiny from the Arctic to Cape Horn. Late in life, he revolutionized warfare in perfecting electronically detonated mines. Maury's eagerness to go to the public in person and in print on the questions of the day riled powerful men in business and politics, and the U.S., Confederate and Royal navies. They dismissed him as the "Man on the Hill." Over his career, Maury more than once ran afoul of Jefferson Davis, and Stephen R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy. He argued against eminent members of the nation's emerging scientific community in a decades-long debate over science for its own sake versus science for the people's sake. Through the political, social and scientific struggles of his time, however, Maury had his share of powerful allies, like President John Tyler; but by the early 1870s they, too, were in eclipse or in the grave.

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:.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Chapter 41. A Man-of-War Library

Incidents of a Whaling Voyage….

Olmsted, Francis Allyn. New York: Appleton, 1841). (New edition. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1969).
  • Maritime Reading
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Olmsted was a passenger aboard the whaler North American [a temperance ship] in 1839, a trip taken as a kind of rest cure for his chronic nervous debility. He returned to Yale for medical school and in fact graduated but died in 1844 after a second voyage.