Voyage to Desolation Island.

Kauffmann, Jean-Paul. London, Harvill Press, 2000.
  • 1970 French Expedition to Kerguélen Islands.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

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.

The Antarctic Manual for the Use of the Expedition of 1901.

Murray, George, editor. With a Preface by Sir Clements R. Markham…, Presented to the Expedition by the Royal Geographical Society. London: Royal Geographical Society, 1901.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. vii: Baron Nordenskiöld has told me that, during the voyage of the Vega, when the North-East Passage was discovered, the books most in request were the “blue book” and the “white book,” as they called the Arctic manuals.

The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party.

Tyler-Lewis, Kelly. New York: Viking, 2006.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An extensive and comprehensive study of the archival and printed sources related to Shackleton’s depot-laying party which had been intended to provide for the final 400 miles of his Trans-Antarctic expedition. This Party succeeded in its depot mission, but Shackleton failed to get there when his ship was frozen and then sank in the Weddell Sea. Tyler-Lewis seems to have a good eye for the reading occasions of the Party.

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
 Preview 

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.

Company of Adventurers: The Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Newman, Peter. London: Penguin Books, 1987.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. xxviii-ix: Returned to English possession by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, York Factory was sacked nearly seventy years later by a valiant raiding party of French marines who had dashed north from the West Indies during the American Revolution. Joseph Colen, the HBC Chief Factor in charge of rebuilding it (and York Factory’s first resident intellectual; he moved in with a library of fourteen hundred books), decided to shift operations to their present site….

A World of Men: Exploration in Antarctica.

Herbert, Wally. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Herbert was in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year and other times, starting in Dec. 1955 with the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey (FIDS). This is an account of his romance with the ice, which seems to have been a strictly masculine affair as the title implies.

Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. Based on Materials Collected and Arranged by Lady Hooker.

Hooker, Joseph Dalton. Two volumes.Leonard Huxley. London: John Murray, 1918.
  • 1839-42 British Antarctic Expedition (James Clark Ross/Terror and Erebus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Naturalist (and assistant surgeon) on James Clark Ross’s Erebus and Terror expedition in 1839. As erudite a traveler as one can imagine, his passion was botany and he was a considerable bookman in that field and well beyond, as illustrated in these volumes which cover Hooker’s entire life, including many reflections on reading throughout his life.

The Journal of Jacob Roggeveen.

Roggeveen, Jacob. Edited by Andrew Sharp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.
  • 1721-22 Dutch West Indies Company Expedition to the South Seas (commanded by Jacob Roggeveen aboard).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 9: Jan Roggeveen (brother?): referred to a book of charts shown by him previously by Jacob in Vere, saying that he had put such a book in Jacob’s chest for the voyage. The charts studied by them no doubt contained representations of islands…, and were mere spots of land separated by vast tracks of ocean….

Arctic Exploration.

Hoare, J. Douglas. . London: Methuen & Co., 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 89: Very little that is worthy of note occurred during the first winter. The monotony of the excessively dull season was, however, relieved by the appearance of a party of Eskimos, who proved to be thoroughly friendly, except on one occasion when they nearly assassinated half the party because they imagined that they had caused the death of one of the members of their tribe by witchcraft.

The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice.

Jones, Max. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Book shows tensions of scientific contributions of polar exploration over against the macho, imperial, jingoistic elements which often symbolized an imperial nation. Jones shows a good balance of respect and criticism for Scott, and situates Scott within the context of his times. His book shows tensions of scientific contributions of polar exploration over against the macho, imperial, jingoistic elements which often symbolized an imperial nation. He is particularly good on the English worship of manliness and pluck, showing how Scott’s reputation gained from the notion that he and his men were somehow superhuman heroes, though suggesting that we know little of how “heroically” Scott and his partners acted.