South Polar Times

SPRI MS 505/4: Typescript.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

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.

And the Whale is Ours: Creative Writing of American Whalemen.

Miller, Pamela A. Boston: David R. Godine: Kendall Whaling Museum 1979.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

A book of extensive excerpts of whalemen’s own escape literature, their own personal journals, often sentimental claptrap about home, love, and death, but best when devoted to their trade of whaling which they tended to depict accurately and realistically.

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska.

Kent, Rockwell. …with an Introduction by Dorothy Canfield. New York: Halcyon House, c.1930.
  • 1919 Rockwell Kent Alaskan Trip at Fox Island.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A journal of Kent’s seven-month winter sojourn on Fox Island, Resurrection Bay, Alaska, with his 9-year old son Rockwell, staying in the cabin of an old Alaskan hand named Olson. Illustrated with some of Kent’s early work.

Arctic Explorations and Discoveries during the Nineteenth Century. Being Detailed Accounts of the Several Expeditions to the North Seas, both English and American, Conducted by Ross, Parry, Back, Franklin, M’Clure, Dr. Kane, and Others. Including the First Grinnell Expedition….in Search of Sir John Franklin.

Smucker, Samuel Mosheim. New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Co., 1858.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Although boredom is something that we have all suffered from at some point in our lives, and has become one of the central preoccupations of our age, very few of us can explain precisely what it is. In this book Lars Svendsen examines the nature of boredom, how it originated, its history, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will. A diverse and vague phenomenon, described as anything from 'tame longing without any particular object' (Schopenhauer), 'a bestial and indefinable affliction' (Dostoevsky), to 'time's invasion of your world system' (Joseph Brodsky), boredom allows many interpretations. In exploring these, Lars Svendsen brings together observations from philosophy, literature, psychology, theology and popular culture, examining boredom's pre-Romantic manifestations in medieval torpor, philosophies of the subject from Pascal to Nietzsche, and modern related concepts of alienation and transgression, taking in texts by Samuel Beckett, J. G. Ballard, Andy Warhol and many others. He also puts forward an ethics for boredom, discussing what stance one can adopt towards boredom as well as how one ought not to do so. This book arose from the author's attempt to relax and do nothing. Finding this impossible, he thought it better to do something, so he wrote A Philosophy of Boredom. A witty and entertaining account that considers a serious issue, it will appeal to anyone who has ever felt bored, and wanted to know why.

Lost in the Arctic, Being the Story of the ‘Alabama’ Expedition, 1909-1912.

Mikkelsen, Ejnar. London: William Heinemann, 1913.
  • 1909-12 Danish Expedition in Search of Mylius-Erichsen (aboard Alabama led by Ejnar Mikkelsen).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 171: When I got back to camp Iversen has prepared a little feast. He has opened a new case of provisions in which we find two cigars, that Laub had packed away as a surprise for us. They are pretty badly damaged, but we fix them up somehow, and are soon enjoying the rare treat of a good smoke, together with the further delight of looking at the pictures in an old number of an illustrated paper that had been used to pack them in. The sheets are greasy and torn, but we put the pieces carefully together—here is reading matter for many days, even though we take a little foretaste of it now by glancing at the text here and there. There are bits of several stories, with neither beginning nor end, but that doesn’t matter—we make up the rest ourselves—a splendid way of passing the time, and an excellent subject for conversation on lying-up days.

Of Whales and Men.

Robertson, R. B. (New York: Knopf, 1954).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

A delightful account of a ship’s doctor on an 8-month cruise of a whaling factory ship, with something of a psychological emphasis on the men he was with.

In the Days of the Red River Rebellion.

McDougall, John. Toronto: Briggs, 1903.
  • 1868-73 Red River Rebellion in Saskatchewan.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

McDougall was a rather devout Protestant missionary who (p. 111-113) engaged the Indians in an anti-alcohol petition, a miner episode in the Red River Colony’s rebellion against the Canadian government which had transferred Hudson’s Bay Company land to the new country to the detriment of Métis interests in their land and culture.

The Frozen Zone and Its Explorers: A Comprehensive History of Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Disasters, and Discoveries in the Arctic Regions….

Hyde, Alexander. Hartford, CT: Columbia Book CO., 1874.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 793-94, concerning the Dutch expedition at Nova Zembla in 1596, describes the Ice House of Berentz found in 1871, a house unvisited for 278 years until 1871, the house included: the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago. The ‘History of China’ points to the goal which Barentz sought, while the ‘Manual of Navigation’ indicates the knowledge which guided his efforts. Stranger evidence never told a more deeply interesting story.

Life in a Man-of-War, or Scenes in “Old Ironsides” during her Cruise in the Pacific

Mercier, Henry James. By a Fore-top-man. Philadelphia, PA: Lydia R. Bailey, 1841. [Published anonymously in 1841. Another edition published in New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.].
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 3, Preface: CRITICS avaunt! curl not your lips with scorn, Do let my humble Sketches pass scot-free— you will find them but the uncouth "YARNS" Of an unlettered wanderer on the sea.

Thulia: A Tale of the Antarctic.

Palmer, James Croxall. New-York: S. Colman, 1843.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A narrative poem about the sailing travails of the US schooner Flying-Fish on the US Exploring Expedition (1838-42). An appendix describes the circumstances that the poem portrays. Basically this is doggerel poetry describing two vessels of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, the Peacock, and the Flying-Fish. An appendix describes the adventures of the latter ship:

No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country.

Conway, Sir William Martin. Cambridge: University Press, 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A general history of the archipelago, based on Conway’s studies and his earlier visits. Although he reviews a number of books in preparation for his manuscript, he does not here reveal the thoughtful reader who appears in his earlier narratves

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket….

Poe, Edgar Allan. (New York: Library of America, 1984). p. 1003-1182.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Fictional account of mutiny on Grampus, June 1827, followed by rescue by a whaler which sailed nearly to the South Pole. Very little about books, but the cabin of Pym’s friend Augustus contained “a table, a chair, and a set of hanging shelves full of books, chiefly books of voyages and travels” (p. 1021). When Pym, a stowaway, was first hidden before departure he describes his hideaway on p. 1024: “I now looked over the books which had been so thoughtfully provided, and selected the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the mouth of the Columbia. With this I amused myself for some time, when growing sleepy, I extinguished the light with great care, and soon fell into a sound slumber.” That seems to be the last mention of books in this exciting and inventive tale.

Archives.

Marvin, Ross. Chemung County Historical Society, 415 E Water St. Elmira, NY.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1905-06 US North Polar Expedition under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Log book kept by Ross G. Marvin July 1905-Jan 1906, during Peary’s North Pole attempt. Marvin was an Assistant to Peary, and Henson was Peary’s Personal Assistant. Marvin also kept a personal diary from July 15 1905 to Sept. 12, 1905.

1908-14 Douglas Mawson book lists

Mawson, Douglas.
  • 1908-09 British Antarctic Expedition; 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Included in Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries is a list of books considered part of the equipment of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1908-09, led by Shackleton aboard Nimrod, and in which Mawson served as “Physicist” of the expedition. The books are mentioned in Mawson’s Antarctic Diaires, ed. By Fred & Eleanor Jacka (Sydney 1988), on p. 6 under the entry for 12 January 1908. The original pencil mss. diary is Notebook 2 (16 December 1908 – 10 February 1909, entitled “Douglas Mawson, his diary of journey from depot on shore of Ross Sea, N of Drygalski Glacier to South Magnetic Pole” (Jacka, p. xiii). The handwritten list is in most cases quite specific about the edition and these have been relatively easy to identify.