Transcript of personal diary of Roy Carlyon, covering the period December 1956-February 1958, which he spent as a member of the New Zealand contingent of a joint British/New Zealand Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It’s unclear from the OCLC entry as to where the original manuscript diary is, but two copies of a transcript are at the University of Canterbury Library (Christchurch) and the University of Waikato Library. Carlyon seems to have been a prodigious reader. While at Scott Base during the first winter months of late April to mid-July, 1957, Carylon mentions the following books:
Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway; Year of the Lion, Gerald Hanley;
Point Count Bidding, Culbertson; Island in the Sun, Eric Waugh; The Protagonists, James Barlow; Face of Innocence, William Samsom; The Second Seal, Dennis Wheatley; Consul at Sunset, Gerald Hanley; Fair Stood the Wind of France, H.E.Bates; Heart of the Antarctic, Shackleton.
Sledge Journey Reading: Carlyon and Harry Ayres were on the polar plateau with two dog teams surveying the Darwin Glacier region when Carlyon wrote this in his unpaged diary: We seem to be getting a lot of reading in these days and Harry has just about exhausted our meagre supply of books. I finished ‘Naked Island’ by Russell Bradon this morning and started on ‘All Boats Away’ by Kenneth Dodson. I don’t think anyone could honestly say they enjoyed the former. The later [sic] I am finding quite absorbing, being about the American navy in the Pacific and rather more interesting in the light of our close association with the Americans at Hut Point." A day earlier Carlyon said that "I finished ‘Point of No Return’ by John P. Marquand and enjoyed it very much.
Books read by surveyor Roy Carlyon during the TAE – taken from his diary:
Title, Author, Date of diary entry
Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway 30 April 1957
The Year of the Lion, Gerald Handley, 5 May
Point Count Bidding, Culbertson, 11 May
Island in the Sun, Eric Waugh, 15 May
The Protagonists, James Barlow, 20 May
Face of Innocence, William Samsom, 26 May
The Second Seal, Dennis Wheatley, 3 June
Consul at Sunset, Gerald Handley, 7 June
Fair Stood the Wind for France, H.E. Bates, 3 July
Heart of the Antarctic, E. Shackleton, 14 July
Recollections of a Journey, R.C. Hutchinson, 20 September
The Rains Came, Louis Bromfield, 20 November
The Citadel, A.J. Cronin, 21 December
Point of No Return, J.P. Marquand, 2 January 1958
Naked Island, Russell Braddon, 3 January
All Boats Away, Kenneth Dodson, 3 January
Courtesy of Stephen Hicks, Christchurch, NZ