Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine.

Leary, William M. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 149, on scattering of ashes of Hubert Wilkins at North Pole from the submarine Skate: While two men held red flares, Calvert [commander of Skate] read from the Book of Common Prayer, then paid a personal tribute to Wilkins….

A Journey to the North Pole.

Verne, Jules. London & New York: George Routledge, 1875. [Later editions under the title At the North Pole, Or The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. Also known as The English at the North Pole.].
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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Novel about an American proposal to auction all territory north of the 84th parallel. The sale was to take place in Baltimore with all proceeds to be divided among underbidders. The English strongly opposed an American purchase, since “The North Pole belonged to them.” The plan itself was to turn the globe on its axis to melt the Pole and extract the coal, while changing the torrid zones as well; but the calculation of the equation to do it proved faulty and the earth was saved. The satire chiefly involves the French poking fun at the US for its North Pole obsession.

The Polar Regions.

Richardson, Sir John. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1861.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Richardson worked with Franklin in two overland expeditions much as Edward Wilson worked with Robert Falcon Scott on two Antarctic journeys, the last one fatal to both explorers. Naturalist, surgeon, explorer, and eventually librarian of Haslar Hospital. In this general overview of the [chiefly northern ] Polar Regions, Richardson shows his erudition while summing up his wide experience of the North.

The Arctic Whaleman, Or Winter in the Arctic Ocean: Being a Narrative of the Wreck of the Whale Ship Citizen, of New London.

Holmes, Lewis. Boston: Wentworth, 1857.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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An account of whaling in the Bering and Chukchi Seas; the wreck of the 'Citizen' in Sept. 1852; and customs and behavior of the natives of the Chukotsk Peninsula, as experienced by the ship's survivors during a nine-month sojourn there. Part Two gives history (in general) and details of whaling, the various whales and outfitting.

South: A Memoir of theEndurance Voyage.

Shackleton, Ernest, Sir. New York: Carroll & Graff, 1998.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 93, [after abandoning the Endurance]: In addition to the daily hunt for food, our time was passed in reading the few books that we had managed to save from the ship. The greatest treasure in the library was a portion of the Encyclopædia Britannica. This was being continually used to settle the inevitable arguments that would arise. The sailors were discovered one day engaged in a very heated discussion of the subject of Money and Exchange. They finally came to the conclusion that the Encyclopædia, since it did not coincide with their views, must be wrong. ‘For descriptions of every American town that ever has been, is, or ever will be, and for full and complete biographies of every American statesman since the time of George Washington and long before, the Encyclopædia would be hard to beat. Owing to our shortage of matches we have been driven to use it for purposes other than the purely literary ones, though; and one genius having discovered that the paper used for its pages had been impregnated with saltpeter, we can now thoroughly recommend it as a very efficient pipe-lighter.’ [Unclear why this paragraph is in Shackleton’s quotes; could these passages be quoted from Worsley’s diary?]

Journey to the Polar Sea

Franklin, Sir John. Koln: Koenemann, 1998.
  • 1819-22 and 1825-27 John Franklin Overland Journeys with John Richardson.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 21: The commander of the vessel [Harmony] gave me a translation of the Gospel of St. John in the Esquimaux language, printed by the Moravian Society in London.

Report on the Dominion of Canada Government Expedition to the Arctic Islands and Hudson Strait on Board the D.G.S. ‘Arctic’.

Bernier, J. E. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1910.
  • 1908-10 Canadian Arctic Expedition to Northern Waters (aboard Arctic commanded by J. E. Bernier).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Bernier’s voyage in 1908-10 was for the purpose of regulating fishing and assure Canadian sovereignty over these large fishing and whaling grounds. Bernier includes a concise summary of previous polar expeditions (p. 17-22), presumably based partly on collections aboard the ship. Unaccountably he skips the period between Ross in 1818 and Inglefield in 1852, excluding both Parry and Franklin though both figure elsewhere in the book.

Newspaper clipping

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

Danish Greenland: Its People and Its Products

Rink, Henry. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown. London: Henry S. King, 1877.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 168: on training of indigenous boys: The author cannot omit adding one instance to illustrate this. Once he took such a boy with him to Denmark, where he stayed only one winter as apprentice in a printing-office, and acquired a skill in book-printing, lithography, and bookbinding, of which he has afterwards given proofs by managing, all by himself, without the least assistance, a small office in Greenland, the productions of which will be mentioned by and by. This young man is by no means a rare exception; perhaps one out of ten may be found to be equally highly gifted. It cannot be denied that the half-breeds seem to surpass the original race as regards such perfectibility.

A Voyage Towards the South Pole, Performed in the Years 1822-24 Containing an Examination of the Antarctic Sea (1827).

Weddell, James. A reprint with a new Introduction by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Second edition. London: David & Charles Reprints, 1970.
  • 1822-24 Weddell Whaling Expeditions.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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It’s obvious that Weddell was well-read on the history of the region he explored (cf. his translation and abstracts of earlier Spanish reports, on p. 61-9), but this isn’t evidence of books aboard—he does speak of the credibility of some books inducing him to search certain islands, implying that copies were on the ship. And the obligatory prayer-books on British ships were certainly present.

The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole.

Herbert, Wally. New York: Athenaeum, 1989.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1908-09 US North Pole Expeditions under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A genuine attempt at an objective assessment of Peary and his North Pole claim, which Herbert eventually concludes to have been off the mark, probably by 50 miles. He carefully avoids anything that might be prejudicial against Peary, but he doesn’t seem to, the same restraint re Cook (but that itself might be prejudicial on my part). In the end he does seem to vindicate Peary as national hero (see Lisa Bloom).

Searching for the Franklin Expedition. The Arctic Journal of Robert Randolph Carter.

Carter, Robert Randolph. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Private journal of a cruise in the Brig Rescue in search of Franklin, together with the Advance. Part of US Grinnell Expedition in 1850, one of 12 search vessels that year. Carter was first officer of the Rescue, a small ship that wintered in 1850-51 off Beechey Island in, where the bodies of three of Franklin’s menrs had been found. Clearly Carter is intelligent witty and educated. p. 10: The headquarters [of the expedition] were the luxurious Astor House, whose accommodations were provided by the management; and the Grinnells had already stocked the ships’ libraries with books, many written by earlier Arctic explorers.