Under the Northern Lights, with Illustrations by G. R de Wilde.

MacGahan, Januarius A. (London: Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876).
  • 1875-76 Private Expedition to Magnetic North Pole and North West Passage (Captain Allen Young aboard Pandora).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Narrative of Captain Allen Young's expedition in his yacht Pandora (later the Jeannette), 1875-76, into Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, and into Peel Sound. Also contains an account of Young's sledge trips during M'Clintock's Fox Expedition. The Voyage was privately organized, its object to sail to the magnetic pole by way of Lancaster Sound and from there negotiate the North West Passage. They reached Beechey Island where they found a number of relics left by earlier expeditions but were finally beset by ice in Franklin Strait. There were two other works written on this expedition, both by the commander, one was privately published and contained photographs. (ABEBooks description.)

The Flag Ship: Or A Voyage Around the World, in the United States Frigate Columbia; Attended by Her Consort The Sloop of War John Adams, and Bearing the Broad Pennant of Commodore George C. Read.

Taylor, Fitch Waterman. By Fitch Waterman Taylor, Chaplain to the Squadron. [Two Volumes] New.York: D. Appleton & Co., 1840.
  • 1838-39 American Circumnavigation (aboard Columbia commanded by George Campbell Read).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 154-55: Previous to our leaving the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, I preached in the English chapel. The congregation was very respectable. The English chaplain who has charge of the congregation, and the chaplain of the Stag [a Brazilian naval ship], were present—the former reading the service.

Before the Heroes Came: Antarctica in the 1890s.

Baughman, T. H. Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1994.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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A solid but rather dry account of exploration in Antarctica during the decade before Robert Falcon Scott’s first expedition aboard the Discovery, and centered on Carsten Borchgrevink, his first landing on the Antarctic Continent, and his 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition. In his concluding chapter, “Lessons not Learned,” Baughman explicitly accuses Clements Markham and Scott of failing to learn the lessons from the previous decade, thus leading to their “heroic” failure. In particular Markham insisted on naval leadership by the wrong people, avoiding scientific expertise, bypassing William Speirs Bruce for Scott, etc.

Last Places: A Journey in the North

Millman, Lawrence. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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p. 132-4, on Johann Petursson, keeper of the lighthouse at Hornbjarg: Johann took the Hornbjarg job in 1961 because he figured it would buy time for, and even fuel, the novel he was writing. It was unheard of, he said, for an Icelandic writer to combine teaching with the labor of his pen…. His literary colleagues tended lighthouses, from which they still managed to carry on a lively dialogue with their public, like the Skálavik keeper Oscar Adalstein Gudjónsson, who read sections of his works in progress over shortwave to the fishing fleet. Yet between navigating boats around icebergs, gathering errant fishing floats, and enduring assistants who couldn’t read the cloud charts…, he, Jóhann, had scarcely written a single word in twenty-six years.

Narrative of an Expedition in HMS Terror: Undertaken with a View to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores, in the Years 1836-7.

Back, George. London: John Murray, 1838.
  • 1836-37 British Voyage of Discovery in HMS Terror (commanded by George Back).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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[From WorldCat] Having served on expeditions under John Franklin, the British naval officer Sir George Back (17961878) had already gained first-hand experience of Arctic peril and survival by the time he was appointed in 1836 to command HMS Terror. His mission was to survey uncharted coastline in the Canadian Arctic, yet Back's ship became trapped in ice near Frozen Strait and was unable to escape for ten months. In this account, first published in 1838, Back lucidly documents the developing crisis, noting the numerous preparations to abandon ship, the deaths of three of his men from scurvy, and the further damage caused by an iceberg after the Terror was freed. Against the odds, the ship managed to reach Ireland in 1837. Naturally, Back gives much credit to the durability of the Terror, originally a bomb vessel from the War of 1812, it had been further strengthened for Arctic service.

Incidents of a Whaling Voyage….

Olmsted, Francis Allyn. New York: Appleton, 1841). (New edition. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1969).
  • Maritime Reading
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Olmsted was a passenger aboard the whaler North American [a temperance ship] in 1839, a trip taken as a kind of rest cure for his chronic nervous debility. He returned to Yale for medical school and in fact graduated but died in 1844 after a second voyage.

Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian: A Memoir.

Murray, Thomas Boyles, 1798-1860. London: S.P.C.K., 1856.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
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p.23: Some books and prints were placed in the hands of the youth, and he expressed the greatest delight in seeing views of ships in the ice, and the figure of an Esquimaux watching for a seal. After gazing for a few minutes at the latter, he uttered a cry of pleasure and said, ‘This one of my people!’ [p. 24 shows an engraving of a seal hunter. Among other places, Kalli was taken to the British Museum, the Crystal Palace (1851), the Horse Guard’s Stables, and finally enrolled at a missionary college in Canterbury, St. Augustine’s.]

Scott and Amundsen: Duel in the Ice.

Langner, Rainer-K. Translated by Timothy Beech. London: Haus Publishing, 2007. Originally published in Frankfort in 2001.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A concise and fairly superficial retelling of the Antarctic story from the Belgica to Scott’s death. It does emphasize, as others often ignore, Amundsen’s reliance on his Polar reading for his preparation.

First Crossing of the Polar Sea, with Additional Chapters by Other Members of the Expedition.

Amundsen, Roald and Lincoln Ellsworth [et al]. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1927.
  • 1926 Amundsen/Ellsworth/Nobile Flying Expedition over North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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A composite account of the 1926 Svalberg to Alaska flight with Nobile, giving a fairly florid account of the expedition, avoiding most of the controversy it engendered. Obviously not much about reading in a crowded gondola, but there are a few things of interest:

Discovery: The Story of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition.

Byrd, Richard Evelyn. New York: Putnam’s, 1935.
  • 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Byrd’ second expedition (1933-1935), again settled at the still usable Little America, emphasizing science and technology at considerable expense for a wholly private expedition. The technology included four airplanes, various tractors, and snowmobiles. The trip included Byrd’s near-fatal solitary period at Bolling Advanced Weather Base recounted in Alone.

A Voyage to the South Sea, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies, in His Majesty’s Ship The Bounty, Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh….

Bligh, William. London: Printed for George Nicol, 1792.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 156, in the course of the mutiny: The boatswain and seamen, who were to go in the boat, were allowed to collect twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, an eight and twenty gallon cask of water, and Mr. Samuel got 150 lbs. of bread, with a small quantity of rum and wine, also a quadrant and compass; but he was forbidden, on pain of death, to touch either map, ephemeris, book of astronomical observations, sextant, time-keeper, or any of my surveys or drawings.

The Home of the Blizzard, Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914.

Mawson, Sir Douglas. Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: Heinemann, [1915].
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Mawson is certainly one of the legendary explorers of the Heroic Age, one who participated in a number of important expeditions, starting with Shackleton’s Nimrod journey. His expeditions were also among those best supplied with books and other reading matter.

Ship’s Libraries; Their Need and Usefulness.

Pierson, John S. (New York: American Seamen’s Friend Society, 1878). 33 p.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. ?? After you’ve done everything to assure the physical and spiritual welfare of the sailor, “the only way left to reach him is by the printed truth—The Bible, the tract, the good book. Just here then comes in the ship’s library with its indispensable offices,--the last important advance made in the line of religious work among seamen,--the ‘missing link,’ I think we may call it, in the chain of evangelical agencies for their benefit.”