Peary: The Man Who Refused to Fail.

Green, Fitzhugh. New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1926.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A lightly disguised paeon to Peary and his endeavors, by a sometime participant in Peary’s expeditions

Strong Men South.

Menster, William J. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1949.
  • 1946-48 US Operation Highjump, Byrd’s Fourth Expedition to Little America (aboard USS Mount Olympus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A charming if a bit sanctimonious account of Operation Highjump by the chaplain of that 1947 expedition aboard USS Mount Olympus.

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
 Preview 

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’

Annual Report of the Chief Signal-Officer [Albert J. Myer] to the Secretary of War for the Year 1872.

United States. War Department. Signal Corps. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 87: The library of the Office has been increased from six hundred volumes to one thousand three hundred and forty. These books have been catalogued and arranged conveniently for reference, and form the nucleus of a valuable meteorological library, to which additions may be made from time to time.

Sledge: The British Trans-Greenland Expedition 1934.

Lindsay, Martin. London: Cassell, 1935.
  • 1934 British Trans-Greenland Expedition (commanded by Martin Lindsay).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

An account of the traversal of the Greenland Ice-Cap, between Jakobshaven, near Disco Island on the west coast, and Angmagssalik on the east coast.

Obituary.

James, Reginald. Online.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Throughout most of the expedition, James regularly kept a diary, and his account of the time spent on Elephant Island gives perhaps the best insight into what conditions were really like for the 22 men left stranded there. Paper being scarce, he was forced to write some of his diary on spare pages in the copy of Lang’s Translation of the “Iliad”, which was one of the few books the men rescued from the sinking Endurance. The book is still in the safe keeping of the James family. His diary includes a number of maps and sketches.

Such is the Antarctic.

Christensen, Lars. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Christensen was from a Norwegian whaling family who took three expeditions to Antarctica to study conditions of the whaling industry at the time. He owned his own whaling ship, the M.T. Thorshaven, which he used for these trips. It is an engaging account from the perspective of a businessman, sentimentally attached to whaling. There is little about reading on these trips but a few indications of materials available. The book is notable for its discussions of the history of Bouvet and Norwegian attempts to occupy the island, despite its unsuitability for any whaling purposes and its only apparent use as a meteorological station. He also discusses the exploration of Enderby Land, and Riiser-Larsen’s discovery of Queen Maud Land.

A Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty’s Ship the Wager in the Years 1740-1741.

Bulkeley, John and John Cummings. Gunner and Carpenter of the Wager. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1927. [First edition, 1743; Second edition, 1757].
  • 1740-41 English Naval Voyage to the South Seas (aboard Wager).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Fascinating account of a shipwreck, a potential mutiny, and a Warrant Officer who took it on himself to advise incompetent officers in how to save the lives of the crew. His advice was dependent upon one volume he borrowed from the ship’s Captain.

The Whale and His Captors, Or, The Whaleman’s Adventures, and the Whale’s Biography, as Gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the "Commodore Preble."

Cheever, Henry Theodore. New York: Harper, 1850 [Reprinted Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1991.].
  • 1849 Return Whaling Voyage South Seas to Boston (aboard Commodore Preble).
  • Maritime Reading
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Author is a pious, anti-papist clergyman travelling in a whaler from South Seas to Boston, observing whaling practices and especially critical of Sabbath breaking customs of whalers.

My Antarctic Honeymoon: A Year at the Bottom of the World.

Darlington, Jennie. By Jennie Darlington as told to Jane McIlvaine. New York, Doubleday, 1957.
  • 1946-48 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

One of two women on Finn Ronne’s 1947-48 Weddell Sea expedition, the other being Edith Ronne, his wife. A rather unflattering portrayal of Ronne as well as Ronne’s wife, the other woman.

The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Mill, Hugh Robert. Boston: Little, Brown, 1923.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A well-written and fairly balanced hagiography by a friend of both Shackleton and his widow. There are few passages on Shackleton’s early reading including the first Scott expedition aboard Discovery.

Journal of a Voyage to the Arctic 1901-02. S S Discovery.

Duncan, James. By J. Duncan. Typescript of Manuscript Journal. Dundee, Scotland: Dundee Art Galleries and Museums. Human History Section, 1973?.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Duncan was a civilian shipwright from Dundee who helped build the Discovery and joined the expedition as an able bodied seaman when the ship was completed. He served as carpenter and in other construction projects (e.g., the Wind Mill) and sometimes as cook, and returned with the Morning after one year. His spelling is phonetic at best (or was it the typist’s?) so that proper names become an interesting puzzle as presented in this transcript. When at sea the journal reads much like a deck log but there is some more substance in the entries made ashore. Here are a few examples of his journal style:

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

Niedieck, Paul. Camden, SC: John Culler, 1995. [First published in 1909.].
  • 1906 British Hunting Trip to Alaska and Siberia.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

The author hunted bear and sheep in Alaska and Siberia and his book is now especially current as he hunted on the fabled Kamchaka Peninsula where hunting had just opened. The author bagged many brown bears and snow sheep.