Archives at Georgetown University

Green, Fitzhugh.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Green was ghostwriter for Byrd’s Skyward, participated in MacMillan’s Crocker Land Expedition, and was responsible for killing a native.

A Voyage to Spitzbergen. [The Gateway to the Polynia].

Wells, John Campion. From the Journal of John C. Wells. New and Cheaper Edition. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1876.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Although the author, an “untraveled Englishman,” is motivated by sport, the main thrust of his book is that Spitsbergen is the best route to the north: for it’s whaling riches, for the benefits of geographical exploration, and for the most economical route of scientific inquiry. Wells himself is described as an old whaling captain in an introductory survey of Arctic exploration that doesn’t reveal its author. I assume the editor was a fellow traveler on a vessel captained by Wells, but I’ve not studied the matter. A most engaging volume.

Along the Labrador Coast.

Townsend, Charles Wendell. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1907.
  • 1900? US private Summer Expedition for Birding and Touring the Labrador Coast.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

It is hard to determine from this book or the internet the date of this engaging tourist journal of the Labrador outports. On p. 98 he refers to the 230 years that the Hudson’s Bay Company had been trading furs from the natives; with a founding date of 1670 we can infer a 1900 date for the trip. He also there notes “No wonder the letters have been interpreted “Here before Christ,” for the company generally get ahead of the missionaries.

A Forgotten Explorer: Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink

Evans, Hugh Blackwall. Polar Record 17 (1984) 221-35.
  • 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Account of one of the first to set foot on Antarctica (Cape Adare Jan. 1895). Points out a good number of Borchgrevink’s claims for which there is no evidence, allowing the inference that Borchgrevink was a great liar.

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
 Preview 

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?]

Around the World with the Battleships

Miller, Robert J. … with Introductory Note by James B. Connolly. Chicago, IL: A.C. McClurg, 1909.
  • 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Not much here on reading by the sailors of the Great White Fleet but it does add some purple propaganda to the overall picture.

A Gipsy of the Horn.

Clements, Rex. London: Hart-Davis, 1951. First edition. (London: Heath, Cranton, 1924).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

An account of a young mariners first voyage, including this passage on reading during a voyage around the world:

A Woman’s Trip to Alaska, Being an Account of a Voyage through the Inland Seas of the Sitkan Archipelago in 1890.

Collis, Septima M. New York: Cassell Publishing, 1890.
  • 1890 US Tourist Voyage to Alaska (Septima Collis).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An unusual woman’s trip for the time, written to encourage other women to abandon their grand tours in favor of this northern one. Miss Collis proves to be a self-indulgent, spoiled wealthy New Yorker, with no sympathy for the natives who “should be coerced into good behavior” (p. 15). She was a Jewish southerner who married a Philadelphia soldier, a general in the Civil War. She travelled with him during the war and wrote a book about her experiences in a divided family. That may be a better book than this self-indulgent one.

Two Years before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea.

Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1840.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Depicts the life of the forecastle seaman on a merchant vessel in 1840. Published anonymously, Dana was an educated gentleman who presented himself as a common seaman intending to “present the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is,—the light and dark together.” (p. 4)

The Cabin Boy’s Log: Scenes and Incidents on a New Bedford Whaler, Written from the Journal as Kept by the Lad on a Three Years’ Voyage in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Tobey, Warren B. Boston: Meador, 1932.
  • 1866-69 US Whaling Expedition to Indian and Pacific Oceans.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 18, the Nov. 1866, preparations for the trip of this 15-year old included writing material, a New Testament, and the Episcopal Prayer Book. No indication throughout that he ever used them. Elsewhere there are several passages about pastimes, scrimshaw, boat models but nothing about reading. Notable for the cruelty of the captain to the cabin boy and the sailors.

Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, being an Account of Various Observations Made during the Voyage of H.M.S. “Challenger”… 1872-1876.

Moseley, Henry N. London: Macmillan, 1879.
  • 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Moseley views most things from the viewpoint of a naturalist but brings a sympathetic humanity to everything he observes. One would have been fortunate to travel on the Challenger with him.