Astrup participated in two of Peary’s early Greenland expeditions, in 1891-92 and 1893-94.
With Peary Near the Pole.
- 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1891-97 and 1898 US Northern Greenland and North Pole Expeditions (Commanded by Robert E. Peary).
- Arctic Reading: United States
The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, in Search of a Passage to Cathay and India by the North-West, A.D. 1576-78.
- 1576-78 The Baffin Island Voyages of Martin Frobisher.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. cii-ciii, re the first voyage: The ship’s library included two works of André Thevet, the French royal geographer, his Cosmography, in French, which had been published only the previous year, and his Singularités de l’Amérique, both in French and in the English translation of 1568, by Thomas Hackett, under the title The New found World or Antarctike. It included William Cunningham’s Cosmographical Glasse, published in 1559, which, to quote Professor Taylor, ‘contains little of purely geographical interest, but is notable for its exposition and illustration of the method of survey by triangulation….’ This volume and Dr Record’s Castle of Knowledge, 1556 (‘containing the explication of the sphere’), which they also took along, ‘were certainly adequate reference books for such astronomy and mathematical geography as was necessary to understand the principles of these various instruments’ (i.e. Cole’s instruments). As they took Medina’s Arte de Naviguar in the original it is to be presumed that the Master could read Spanish. The only English work included was Mandeville, ‘presumably for the sake of its account of the Far East, which was the ultimate goal of the expedition’. They also took ‘a Bible Englishe great volume’, possibly Richard Jugge’s Bishop’s Bible of 1572.
Around the World with the Battleships
- 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Not much here on reading by the sailors of the Great White Fleet but it does add some purple propaganda to the overall picture.
Sleeping Island: The Story of One Man’s Travels in the Great Barren Lands of the Canadian North.
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
A delightful book of Chipawyan and Cree folklore by a regular American summer visitor in the 1930s and early 40s, a Harvard man (AB ’33) and high school teacher at Belmont Hill School. He loved exploring the Barren Lands during his summer breaks between 1937 and 1947. Shows signs of his fairly wide reading on the history of the region, but none of his own reading on this particular voyage. Since he never overwintered his opportunities for reading were limited.
The Autobiography of a Seaman.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
This author is one very aristocratic sailor who had his troubles with the Royal Navy and the British government in the early nineteenth century. Suffice it to say that this is not a voice from the forecastle, but of petulant complaints concerning the “injustice and folly” of the government court (p. 493). There is nothing I could find in this book about polar reading, or any reading at all.
White-Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War.
- Arctic Reading: General
Chapter 41 “A Man-of-War Library”
In Search of a Penguin’s Egg.
- 1958-59 British FIDS (BAS) Expedition at Halley Bay.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Norman Nelson was in the British National Service when he was transferred to a FIDS expedition to the Falklands and the Antarctic Peninsula in 1958. Raymond Priestley introduced him to the prospect of following up on Edward Wilson’s penguin studies of 1911. His experience was similar.
Elephant Island and Beyond: The Life and Diaries of Thomas Orde Lees.
- 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A selection from the meticulous diaries of Orde Lees, who as chief of supplies and provisions was the least popular member of the Shackleton Endurance expedition, but nonetheless a fair, scrupulous, and fastidious store-master on the journey. Traces his aristocratic background and some of its effect on fellow crew members who could deride his chronic sea-sickness, or even accuse him of cowardice. Apart from his sometimes fawning attitude to Sir Ernest, it is a responsible piece of work.
The Life of Sir John Richardson.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
A typical Victorian biography of an exemplary life, with a good deal of material from his journals, and considerable emphasis on Richardson’s religious convictions.
“There She Blows:” A Narrative of a Whaling Voyage, in the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans.
- Maritime Reading
Originally published in 1849, this is Ben Ely's personal account of whaling off Madagascar aboard the bark Emigrant. This modern edition includes a biographical introduction and much additional information by Ely's great-grandson. Facsimile of original title page. ALBION, p. 202.
Alexander Mackenzie and the North West.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
p. 97, concerning his first Arctic trip in 1789: In this voyage I was not only without the necessary books and instruments, but also felt myself deficient in the science of astronomy and navigation. I did not hesitate therefore to undertake a winter’s voyage [to England] in order to procure the one and acquire the other.
Tudor Political Consultancy.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
In the opening lines of his preface to The Image of Governance (1541), Elyot tells his reader that he came across his subject while
A Relic of Ross.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Identifies a book which James Clark Ross had with him on both his Arctic and Antarctic voyages and which he inscribed twice to so indicate. The book is The Economy of Human Life, 1808, variously attributed to Lord Chesterfield, Robert Dodsley (Johnson’s publisher), John Hill, or even unascribed as a volume from the library of the Grand Lama of Tartary. It is a small book of homilies on the conduct of life, often published; this copy first belonged to Isabella Ross, sister of James Clark Ross. He had it with him as first lieutenant to Captain Edward Parry in H.M.S. Hecla in the high Arctic when he inscribed it: “Written on board the Endeavour [a sledge boat detailed from the Hecla] in Latitude 82 3/4˚ N. 27th July, 1827. Jas. C. Ross.” (p. 355)
Those Greenland Days: The British Arctic Air-Route Expedition, 1930-31.
- 1930-31 British Greenland Air Route Expedition.
- Greenland.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
A rather less engaging book than his later Sledge, but informative on an expedition to scope out air-routes across Greenland by meteorological observations on the icecap. Several reading references:
The Strange and Dangerovs Voyage of Captaine Thomas Iames, in His Intended Discovery of the Northwest Passage into the South Sea….
- 1631-32 British Search Voyage for North West Passage (Captains Luke Foxe and Thomas James of Bristol).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. 606, in a list of instruments provided for his voyage are a number of books: A Chest full of the best and choicest Mathematicall bookes that could be got for money in England; as likewise Master Hackluite and Master Purchase, and other books of Journals and Histories.
