The Speedwell Voyage: A Tale of Piracy and Mutiny in the Eighteenth Century.>

Poolman, Kenneth. New York: Berkley Books, 2000.
  • 1720 British Privateering Voyage (aboard Speedwell).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Not a particularly well done account of British privateering in the early 18th century, but it does mention that the Captain of the Speedwell, George Shelvocke, had a few books that guided his navigation, including Captain Woodes Rogers A Cruising Voyage Round the World (London, 1712), and A. F. Frezier’s Voyage to the South Sea and Along the Coasts of Chili and Peru (London, 1706).

The Man on the Ice Cap. The Life of August Courtauld.

Woolaston, Nicholas. (London: Constable, 1980).
  • 1930-31 British Greenland Air Route Expedition.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Courtauld was a British yachtsman who notably spent a winter alone as meteorologist on the Greenland icecap in 1930-31, where he had considerable reading matter.

Four Years aboard the Whaleship. Embracing Cruises in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Antarctic Oceans, in the year 1855, ‘6, ‘7, ‘8, ‘9.

Whitecar, William B. Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: Trubner, 1864.
  • 1855-59 US Whaling Voyage aboard Pacific.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

[From a bookseller’s catalogue on ABEBooks]: Whitecar, an intelligent observer, sailed from New Bedford aboard the Pacific, on a whaling voyage which took him to Antarctic waters, Australia & New Zealand. His narrative gives good details of the whaler's life on ship and ashore from 1855-59, one of the best for the time, including observations & comparisons of whaling equipment and practices. Whitecar includes much on the West Australian coast, visiting the Vasse & Cape Leeuwin a number of times. He spends time in Albany (King Georges Sound), visits Geraldton (Champion Bay), Esperence (the Recherche Archipelago) and the Houtmans Abrolhas. In observing W.A., he comments “I didn't see a glass of spirits drank. ale and beer were however swallowed without regard to quality or quantity.” The majority of the book relates to West Australian waters & anecdotes. A very readable & informative account, one of the best we've read on West Australia. Bookseller Inventory # 8363. [This annotation is partly plagiarized in a Bartfield listing for the same book. Whitecar’s account is quite a charming account of the whaling life, somewhat sanitized for the domestic reader, pointing out the foibles and peccadilloes of sailors on other ships but seeing his ship as something of a model of discipline and benign leadership.]

Antarctic Scout

Chappell, Richard Lee. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1959.
  • 1957- Operation Deep Freeze.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Chappell was part of a program to send Boy Scouts on Antarctic expeditions, in his case to Operation Deep Freeze II when he was a winterover at Little America. Paul Siple was an earlier participant who became an important American explorer and encouraged this young man who later went to Princeton. The writing is wooden and generally sanctimonious, betraying the author’s youth. Reading is minimal, mostly confined to the Bible (p. 81), though he does find a copy of Murphy’s Oceanic Birds of South America to help his pursuit of ornithology, and he did participate in Little America’s “University of the Antarctic.” At those sessions he studied Morse code and did manage to send off a sample message. He ends with a rather fundamentalist homily based on Matt 28:20: “lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Chappell does not appear to have published anything else.

“The North West Passage” Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship “Gjoa” 1903-1907 by Roald Amundsen with a Supplement by First Lieutenant Hansen Vice-Commander of the Expedition.

Amundsen, Roald. Two Volumes. (New York: Dutton, 1908).
  • 1903-07 Norwegian Northwest Passage Expedition (Roald Amundsen aboard Gjoa).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A strangely colorless, almost vacuous account of a long expedition, at least in this translated prose. Volume I has only a few bookish references, a picture on p. 119 of a shelf of scientific books in the Villa ‘Magnet”, the small base building for magnetic observations. And a description of an Eskimo visit to the ship:

With Scott: The Silver Lining.

Taylor, Griffith. Banham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1997. Reprint of 1916 edition, intro by David Walton.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Griffith Taylor led the Western Party of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, scientifically constituting perhaps the most successful part of Scott’s fatal journey.

The Lord’s Librarians: The American Seamen’s Friend Society and their Loan Libraries 1837-1967

Stam, David H. . Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime History III no. 1 (2012) 59 p. Online through National Maritime Digital Library.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 1 Abstract: "The Lord's Librarians" describes in new detail the activities of the American Seamen's Friend Society in distributing loan libraries to merchant and naval ships for over 130 years. Based on the archives of the Society in the G.W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the study examines the history of the Society in its efforts towards moral improvement of seamen, fostering temperance, reducing licentiousness, encouraging Sabbath worship and observation, countering swearing, and promoting thrift and financial responsibility among sailors. It examines the largely evangelical collection development policies for these compact 40-45 volume library boxes, and attempts to locate the surviving boxes and surviving books from these libraries. It ends with some unanswered questions which deserve further study.

Cannibal Nights: Adventures of a Free-Lance Trader.

Raabe, H. E. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1931.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Nothing to do with whaling or reading but a good swash-buckling story worthy of Flashman: A peerless hero of U. S. mariners is Captain Ahab, the vindictive old salt who sailed the southern oceans screaming for more canvas, cursing tired crews, laughing wildly into the gale as he hunted the Great White Whale, Moby Dick, who had cost him a leg. Last week U. S. mariners heard a voice reminiscent of the great mad Ahab—almost.

Master Mariner and Arctic Explorer: A Narrative of Sixty Years at Sea from the Logs and Yarns of Captain J. E. Bernier.

Bernier, J. E. Ottawa, Ont.: Le Droit, 1939.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence.

The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives.

Blum, Hester. Chapel Hill NC: University Press of North Carolina, 2008.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

As much literary history as exploration narratives, this fascinating study examines both several classics of American fiction and the reading habits of sailors. Blum has gathered a great deal of information about the working-class forecastle men and their interest in reading. For transcripts of their reading reactions, their dealing with ennui, and the production of literature for their use see entries in these anthologies for Cheever, Colnett, Dana, Delano, Little, Mercier, Porter, and several other whalemen.

Confessions of A Leigh Hunt.

Hunt, A. Leigh. Wellington, NZ: Reed, 1951.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

No relation to Leigh Hunt, this one founded the NZ Antarctic Club and knew several explorers, and gave lantern lectures to schools about Scott etc.

At Anchor: A Narrative of Experiences Afloat and Ashore during the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger from 1872 to 1876.

Wild, John James. London: Marcus Ward, 1878.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

This is a straightforward and rather innocuous account of the three and a half year voyage, emphasizing flora and fauna as well as buildings throughout their shore visits. Pleasant but anodyne. Wild was the official photographer of the expedition. Wikipedia states in the Wild entry: The ship was equipped with a dark room, enabling development of the photographs taken of the lands and peoples encountered. It is thought that this expedition was the first to include routine photography as well as an official artist .