Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, and Round the World: Being Personal Narratives of Attempts to Reach the North and South Poles; and of an Open-boat Expedition up the Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin and Her Majesty’s ships “Erebus” and “Terror,” in Her Majesty’s Boat “Forlorn Hope,” under the Command of the Author. To which are added an Autobiography….

McCormick, Robert. In Two Volumes. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1884.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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These volumes cover three separate expeditions with an autobiography, and can be found on the Hathi Trust. McCormick was the surgeon on Ross’s Erebus (1839-1843), also something of a zoologist who also was involved in the Franklin Search in the 1850s.

Diary, Nov 5, 1914 to Dec 1915

[Author?]. SPRI MS 1605/1/2. [in SPRI numbering, this comes after the later 1916 volume described below.].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 33 Jan 12th 1915: Started reading “Guinea Gold” by Beatrice Grimshaw.

Journal of a Voyage with Bering, 1741-1742.

Steller, Georg Wilhelm. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. 189: Footnote: Among the essential items [on Bering’s expedition] were three quadrants, one chronometer, one compass, one spyglass, eleven books of navigation, one bundle of charts, two bundles of calculations, and seven maps. [See Bancroft 90: n 14.]

The Last of the Arctic Voyages, Being a Narrative of the Expedition in H.M.S. Assistance …, in Search of Sir John Franklin, during the Years 1852-53-54.

Belcher, Sir Edward. Two volumes. London: Lovell Reeve, 1855.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Belcher’s account is clearly one which he wrote during his voyage, and is interesting in noting his use of books aboard the ship, books we know to be present since they are in the catalogue of the Assistance.

Narrative of the North Polar Expedition. U.S. Ship Polaris, Captain Charles Francis Hall Commanding.

Davis, Charles H. Edited under the Directtion of Hon. G. M. Robeson... by Rear-Admiral C. H. Davis, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1876.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Here is the official report of the Expedition, prepared from the journals of the officers and men, including the incidents of George Tyson’s ice-floe party. William Barr, in his 2016 edition of Bessel’s journal, refers to this as a “sugar-coated” account of the expedition.

South Polar Times

SPRI MS 505/4: Typescript.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Only copy, owned by Cherry-Garrard and largely produced by him. Introduction written later by Frank Debenham. No mention of Scott’s Polar party. “Ed., typed & illus. largely by me”—ACG. Drawings by Cherry have a remarkable delicacy.

The Discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. Investigator, Capt. R. M’Clure, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854.

McClure, Robert John. Edited by Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., &c…, from the Logs and Journals of Capt. Robert Le M. M’Clure. London: Longman, Brown, 1857.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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HMS Investigator was one of the ships assigned to the western end of the as yet undiscovered Northwest Passage in the search for Franklin and the hope that his expedition had made it through. By confusion or arrangant independence the Investigator proceeded without its companion ship HMS Enterprise, commanded by Richard Collinson. Caught by the ice, it returned to Hong Kong while Investigator headed eastward into the Passage. The ship spent the next three winters in winter quarters until April of 1854 when the men were found by a rescue team from HMS Resolute and they escaped to the east leaving the ship abandoned. One positive outcome, despite several deaths, was that the voyage definitively established the existence of the Northwest Passage’

Ships and Squadron Logistics,

Lundeberg, Philip K. in Magnificent Voyagers: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842. Edited by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 152, describing accommodations on the flagship Vincennes: Wilkes own stateroom and pantry, and a large reception room that accommodated drafting tables and a library of charts and scientific works, as well as the ample conference table and sideboards customary in small frigates.

Pacific and Indian Oceans; or the South Sea Surveying and Exploring Expedition.

Reynolds, Jeremiah N. New York: Harper, 1841.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This volume includes a couple of Reynold’s works commenting on the preparation for the ExEx, from which he was eventually excluded. The volume includes reprints of two works previously published by the author: Address on the subject of a surveying and exploring expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South seas -- New York, 1836, and, Exploring expedition. Correspondance between J. N. Reynolds and the Hon. Mahlon Dickerson, under the respective signatures of "Citizen" and "Friend to the navy", touching the South sea surveying and exploring expedition -- [New York, 1838?] He never went to the Antarctic but his comments in preparation have peculiar interest.

Icebound in the Siberian Arctic: The Story of the Last Cruise of the Fur Schooner

Gleason, Robert J. Nanuk and the International Search for Famous Arctic Pilot Carl Ben Eielson . Anchorage, AK: Alaska Northwest Pub. Co., 1982.
  • 1928-29 Soviet Trading Voyage in Northwest Passage (aboard Nanuk).
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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The story of a fur trading vessel that wintered over at North Cape near the Bering Straits among Chukchi Eskimos, together with an account of the rescue attempt by air of Carl Ben Eielson, founder of Alaskan Airlines. In 1929, Eielson died alongside his mechanic Earl Borland in an air crash while attempting to evacuate furs and personnel from the Nanuk , then trapped at North Cape.

Cruises in the Bering Sea: Being Records of Further Sport and Travel .

Niedieck, Paul. Translated by R. A. Ploetz. London: Rowland Ward, 1909. [Reprint Camden, SC: John Culler, 1995.].
  • 1906 German Hunting Expedition in Alaska and Siberia.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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The German author hunted bear and sheep in Alaska and Siberia and his book is now especially current as he hunted on the fabled Kamchatka Peninsula where hunting has just been opened. The author bagged many brown bears and snow sheep.

The Private Life of Polar Exploration.

Scott, James Maurice. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1982.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 65, re Scott’s Northern Party: Levick used to read aloud in the evening, first a chapter a night of David Copperfield, then the Life of Stevenson, then Simon the Jester [William Locke novel]. That was their library, and thus rationed lasted them about half way through the winter…. On Sunday nights they sang with a religious bias.

Nantucket Whalemen in the Deep-sea Fishery: the Changing Anatomy of an Early American Labor Force,

Vickers, Daniel. Journal of American History 72 (Sept. 1985) 277-296.
  • Maritime Reading
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On the whaling journey of the brig Polley to West Africa in 1774, and in particular one of its crew, Samuel Atkins, who wrote some poetry about the journey: Steadily the nerves of unlucky whalemen were worn down by loneliness, boredom, and the knowledge that the vessel would have to remain at sea until a reasonable haul of oil had been taken in (p. 278).

Nova Zembla (1596-1597). The Barents Relics, Recovered in the Summer of 1876, by Charles L. W. Gardiner, Esq. and Presented to the Dutch Government.

De Jonge, Jan K. J. Described and explained by J. K. J. de Jonge…. London: Trubner, 1877.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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Preface by translator: The first discoveries of vestiges of the Barents Voyage were made by Capt. Elling Carlsen in 1871, the first to enter Ice Haven since Barents in 1596. Discoveries were made on Sept. 9 and 11, 1871. He found the Barents “Behouden-huis” or house of safety and some relics, but was intent on circumnavigating the island. The 80 items described in de Jonge’s first report (see the 1873 Hakluyt volume on Barents’ voyages) included some books bought by an English tourist, Ellis C. Lister Kay, but the Dutch government went after them, and obtained them for the same price. They were placed in the Naval Department at the Hague where a replica of the house (with open front) houses the relics.