p. 109, footnote 39: The catalogue of the Resolute library appears in the first issue (June 1850) of the Aurora Borealis, one of the manuscript newspapers produced on that voyage. The issue is held in the Edward Newell Harrison papers, MS/75/061, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. The catalogue was not reproduced in Arctic Miscellanies, the publication that reprinted selections from the Aurora Borealis after the crew returned home to England. The catalogue of the library on Belcher’s Assistance was actually printed on board ship: A Catalogue of the Library Established on Board H.M.S.Assistance, Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B. Commanding the Arctic Squadron in Search of Sir John Franklin and His Companions: Printed and published on Board H.M.S.Assistance, Wellington Channel, Arctic Regions, H. Briantt, Printer, 1853. (1853). A copy of this catalogue is held in the Royal Geographical Society Library bound with other pamphlets concerning the Arctic donated by John Barrow Jr. and given the binder’s title: Arctic Pamphlets, 1852-54.
“Caxtons of the North: Mid Nineteenth-century Arctic Shipboard Printing”
- Arctic Reading: General
Private e-mail from cruise ship Spirit of Enderby,February 3, 2018, sailing in Antarctic Ocean toward Campbell Islands.
- Arctic Reading: General
Hicks, a lecturer for the cruise ship, reports the following titles in the ship’s library. Here is some information on the ship's library:
Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer.
- 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
- Arctic Reading: United States
An excellent account of the life of the most eccentric of Arctic explorers who essentially abandoned his family in Cincinnati to pursue his Arctic dreams. Unprepared and inexperienced in Arctic ways, he adopted to and adapted Eskimo ways of living and survival by living with them for long periods and learning from them their secrets of survival. Both his origins and demise are clouded in mystery.
A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean:.., Performed in his Majesty’s Sloop Providence and Her Tender, in the Years 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798.
- 1795-98 British Naval Expedition to the North Pacific Ocean (aboard HMS Providence).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Like so many 18th-century accounts, this one shows little indication of reading during the voyage, though there are a few scraps:
Voyage to Desolation Island.
- 1970 French Expedition to Kerguélen Islands.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
This Frenchman seems a bit obsessed with boredom, as shown on his travel book to the Kerguélen Islands. The week-long voyage provides “the indispensable prelude to getting to know any unknown country: waiting and boredom.” “Isn’t having nothing to do the supreme test, more even than suffering? Whoever can fill the emptiness of his being, where there is nothing more to occupy it, will survive. He will overcome the cruelest torture: time without limit and without end. Pain keeps one occupied; the man who suffers sees himself in his torment.
Alone to the South Pole.
- 1992-93 Norwegian Solo Expedition to South Pole.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
An unsupported sledging and ski trip from the Ronne Ice Shelf near the Ellsworth Mountains to the South Pole, ca. 1300 km, with use of GPS and maps. He provides one of the best synopses of expedition reading, at a time when books and reading are being replaced in Antarctica by videos, albeit with a small group of titles.
Arctic Hell-Ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise 1850-1855.
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
An account of the Bering Strait approach to the Franklin Search with Collinson’s Enterprise and McClure’s Investigator.
- 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Lansing was an American journalist who interviewed all of the survivors of the Expedition from the 1950s and used all of the extant journals (mostly at SPRI) to write this amazing book.
History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876.
- Whalemen's Reading
One of the classics of early whaling literature, though with little material about whaling life at sea or ways to occupy time.
Arctic Meeting at Chickering Hall. Plan for Exploration of the Arctic Regions,
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
Includes meeting commentary by William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Lord Dufferin, and Isaac Hayes. Hayes approved Howgate’s plan but recommended the mouth of Smith Sound rather than Lady Franklin Bay because he wasn’t confident that the later could be reached every year. He was right.
Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine.
- Arctic Reading: United States
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….
Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818-1860.
- Arctic Reading: General
An important if a bit theoretical approach to telling the Arctic story in the earlier nineteenth century, and especially in their serial publication (as in Dickens e.g.). She compares Arctic exploration narratives, serially reported, with serialized fiction of the period. Main emphasis is on John Franklin, from his earlier land journeys to his disappearance in 1845, and the periodic discoveries of his fate.
“Antarctic” zwei Jahre in Schnee und Eis am Südpol.
- 1901-04 Swedish Antarctic Expedition (Otto Nordenskjöld).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
The German edition of Nordenskjöld’s book contains several photographs of reading spaces, esp. opp. p. 210, the author at his worktable.
The Arctic Regions: Illustrated with Photographs Taken on an Art Expedition to Greenland.
- 1869 US Greenland Expedition of William Bradford (aboard Panther).
- Arctic Reading: United States
The narrative of Bradford’s 1869 original is all but unreadable in its original elephant folio format. This version offers a readable Bradford at last, with reduced text format and all the illustrations. The text is a fairly straightforward account of the Greenland voyage, with some good coverage of the natives encountered and especially of the Danish hospitality in several outports. Bradford proudly says at the outset that his ship, the Panther, was a temperance ship for all crew and passengers.
Narrative and Successful Result of a Voyage in the South Seas, Performed by the Government of British India, to Ascertain the Actual Fate of La Pérouse’s Expedition….
- Maritime Reading
Volume I: