A Voyage to Terra Australis, Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country….

Flinders, Matthew. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1966. [Facsimile of 1814 edition, Two vols. & atlas volume of individual charts.].
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Vol. I, p. 6: Among the books on this voyage were the “books of voyages to the South Seas, which, with our own individual collections, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, presented by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, formed a library in my cabin for the use of all the officers.” Every Admiralty chart for Australia was copied for them.

A Forgotten Explorer: Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink

Evans, Hugh Blackwall. Polar Record 17 (1984) 221-35.
  • 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Account of one of the first to set foot on Antarctica (Cape Adare Jan. 1895). Points out a good number of Borchgrevink’s claims for which there is no evidence, allowing the inference that Borchgrevink was a great liar.

Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness 1913-1916.

Jenness, Diamond. Hull, QU: Canada Museum of Civilization, 1991.
  • 1913-16 Canadian Arctic Expedition (Led by Stefansson with Captain Bob Bartlett commanding the Karluk).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. xxi: The author [Jenness] was unusually fond of Homer’s The Odyssey. In the summer of 1906, as one of only two students in a Greek class with Professor William von Zedlitz at Victoria University College, Wellington, New Zealand, he was invited to read The Odyssey each Friday evening in Greek at his professor’s home…. during the seven months he wandered about southwestern Victoria Island with his Copper Eskimo friends, in 1915, my father often found moments for reading passages in and obtaining spiritual comfort from a small copy of The Odyssey he carried with him. This book evidently had a special meaning to him, and he continued to extract both pleasure and comfort from it on later occasions, including a time two years later when he was in the muddy wartime trenches in France.

Ross in the Antarctic: The Voyages of James Clark Ross in Her Majesty’s Ships Erebus and Terror, 1839-1843.

Ross, M. J. Whitby, Yorks., England: Caedmon of Whitby, 1982.
  • 1839-42 British Antarctic Expedition (James Clark Ross/Terror and Erebus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

An entire volume devoted to the Ross expedition with substantial chapters on each of the three Antarctic summer voyages, as well as material on each of the antipodean winter sojourns in Hobart, Tasmania, Sydney and New Zealand, and the Falklands.

Address, on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas…April 3, 1836.

Reynolds, Jeremiah N. New York: Harper, 1836.
  • 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Recounts importance of maritime power to U.S. for commerce, yielding the North and Arctic to Britain which he says will find the Northwest Passage, and arguing for scientific exploration (p. 22-3) without immediate dividends though the practical benefits will soon follow. His proposal is for a voyage of discovery to the Pacific and Southern Oceans.

Books Afloat & Ashore: a History of Books, Libraries, and Reading among Seamen during the Age of Sail.

Skallerup, Harry Robert. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1974.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

p. 4: In 1631, when Captain Thomas James fitted out his vessel in Bristol for a voyage in search of the Northwest Passage, he purchased ‘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. [see C Miller, ed. Voyages of Captain Luke Fox of Hull, Hakluyt Soc. London 1894, p. 265-67, 606 p.]

Diary, 1881 July 7—l883 Aug 2.

Rice, George W. Stefansson MSS. 186, Dartmouth College Library.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A record of Rice’s experiences as photographer on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, 1881-1884. Unpaged but carefully dated throughout.

The United States Arctic Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay

Greely, Adolphus Washington. Proceedings of the Royal Geographic Society and monthly record of geography, 4 no. 3 (March 1882) p. 171-175.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Greely’s report from Fort Conger in 1881 on the first few months of the expedition, including discovery of fragments from the Nares expedition, and his conviction: …that in my opinion, a retreat from here southward to Cape Sabine, in case no vessel reaches us in 1882 or 1883, will be safe and practicable, although all but the most important records will necessarily have to be abandoned. Abstracts could and would be made of those left. (p. 175)

Report of the Executive Committee in Charge of Kane Lodge Reception to Bro. Robert Edwin Peary, U.S.N., and Other Arctic Explorers. At Sherry’s, New York, April 8.

Peary, Robert E. New York: Kane Lodge, No. 454 F. & A.M., l896.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Includes a short address by Peary and his presentation of a Masonic flag that he carried twelve hundred miles through the Arctic; the book is a presentation copy from Joseph L. Little, the committee's chairman, to Joseph Morris Ward, the Treasurer reading in part "... I believe the issuing of this little souvenir volume finishes up the Peary incident as connected with the Lodge...".

Shackleton Collection.

Rendell, Kenneth. Exhibited at Boston Museum of Science, March 2001.
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Included in the exhibit were: Tennyson, Alfred Lord. Complete Works. Given in 1908 to Lt. Shackleton and the Officers of the Nimrod, and kept in officer’s mess; Swinburne Poems. Signed by Shackleton; South. First ed. Signed by Shackleton; Nautical Almanac. 1908. Shackleton’s copy from the Nimrod; Inscribed portrait of Shackleton; Signed 1914 solicitation letter for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition; Signed photograph of Frank Hurley’s Winter Night; Cover illustration of South, presented to a Mrs. Pearson.

Farthest North.

Nansen, Fridtjof. Jan Krakauer, Series Editor. Introduction by Roland Huntford. New York, Modern Library, 1999.
  • 1893-96 Norwegian North Pole Expedition (Fridthof Nansen aboard Fram).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

On Nansen’s 1893-96 Fram expedition and the first wintering over.

Mark Well the Whale! Long Island Ships to Distant Seas.

Schmitt, Frederick P. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A rather light bit of local history re Cold Spring Harbor and whaling out of Long Island, incl. Sag Harbor, and descriptions of voyages and disasters.