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

From Pole to Pole: The Life of Quintin Riley, 1905-1980.

Riley, Jonathan P. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1989.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Quinton Riley was the Quarter Master of the British Graham Land Expedition, and this biography includes one full chapter on his participation in the BGLE (p. 55-95). He is described as a good-natured but argumentative colleague, of firm religious convictions, and a valuable member of the expedition staff.

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.

A Man-of-War Library

Melville, Herman. White-Jacket, or The world in a Man-of-War. (New York: Library of America, 1983) p. 522-24:.
  • Maritime Reading
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Chapter 41 A Man-of-War Library

The Cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka & New Guinea with Notices of Formosa, Liu-Kiu, and Various Islands of the Malay Archipelago.

Guillemard, F. H. H. Second Edition. London: John Murray, 1889.
  • 1882-84 British South Seas Expedition aboard Marchesa.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. x: In these latter regions there is indeed but one thing that mars the traveller’s enjoyment. The book of Nature lies freely open to him, but without years of study he cannot read it. It is written in an unknown language. He is confused with the unfamiliarity of the character and the apparently insuperable obstacles it presents. Such at least were my own feelings, although travel in tropic lands was no new thing to me. The few sentences I have deciphered have for the most part, I fear, been already translated by others, and in giving them to my readers I can only express my regret that Nature's volume has not met with a better exponent.

The Great White Fleet. Its Voyage Around the World 1907-1909.

Hart, Robert A. Boston: Little Brown, 1965.
  • 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A balanced account of sardonic admiration for what was intended as a show of naval strength and yet often regarded as President Roosevelt’s political publicity stunt by much of the western world. It also touted the “Yellow Peril” despite a peaceful visit to Japan.

This Accursed Land.

Bickel, Lennard. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1977.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Bickel notes the absence of “heroics” in Home of the Blizzard, betrayed by his journals, however modest. An earlier version of Mawson’s Will, with some additional reading passages.

Two Voyages to the South Seas. Volume II: Astrolabe and Zélée 1837-1840.

D’Urville, Jules S-C. Translated from the French and edited by Helen Rosenman. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1987.
  • 1837-40 French South Seas Voyage of Astrolabe (Jules d’Urville).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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D’Urville proposed this second voyage to the South Seas but it was the French King who suggested that its first goal should be toward the South Pole as ice permitted. Through the Admiral Minister the King “approved everything I asked for.” This volume is taken from D’Urville’s journals of the second voyage with a great deal of connective commentary and paraphrases by the editor. It is her writing that appears in quotes below and his journals without quotes.

Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, Through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; In the Years 1789 and 1793. With a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur Trade of that Country.

Mackenzie, Alexander, Sir. Philadelphia, PA: John Morgan, 1802.
  • 1789-93 Overland Voyages of Mackenzie Exploring the Far North.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Mackenzie was the first white man to cross the Rockies, discover the river named for him, following it to the Arctic Ocean, and to write the early history of the fur trade.

Antarctic Hazard.

Cockrill, Ross. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957.
  • 1950-51 British Whaling Expedition (aboard Southern Venturer).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Cockrill applied for the job of veterinarian on the British whaling expedition aboard the Southern Venturer in 1950-51, to evaluate the Antarctic whaling population, its health and welfare and the likely survival of the whaling industry in its postwar rebound. Cockrill has a charming style displaying admirable equanimity amidst fanatic whalemen. His ship was part of a large fleet of vessels making annual expeditions which typically killed 34,000 whales.

The Historical Russian Library of Alaska

Andrews, Clarence L. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 29 (April 1938) p. 201-04.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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Describes a collection of about 1200 volumes, mostly in Russian, sent from the Russian ship Nadezhda in 1803 and following years to “Our Colonies in America.” It was first at Kodiak, and then in Sitka before removal to the Mercantile Library of San Francisco in 1871, and eventual disposition. By 1825 it was described by Kyril Khlebnikof, chief of the counting house at Sitka: “The library in Sitka consists in more than one thousand two hundred volumes, which are held at 7500 rubles, in the number which are more than 600 Russian, 300 French, 130 German, 35 English, 30 Latin, and the remainder in Swedish, Dutch, Spanish and Italian languages.” How it was eventually found abandoned in San Francisco is not known, nor how it escaped the Great Fire. By 1869 Sitka had another library, its post library, but connected to the earlier one as far as the author can see.

The Sketch Book.

Irving, Washington. Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, 1843. Authorized Edition. [First published serially in 1819-20.].
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 12: This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their con-