Narrative of a Voyage of H.M.S. Herald during the Years 1845-51, under the Command of Captain Henry Kellett…being A Circumnavigation of the Globe.

Seemann, Berthold. Two volumes. London: Reeve and Co., 1853.
  • 1845-51 British Voyage of Exploration to the West Coast and the Pacific (Commanded by Henry Kellett aboard HMS Herald).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

This expedition was focused on the US West Coast and Pacific natural history rather than high latitudes though it did reach the Bering Strait. Its focus was chiefly botanical.

Daily Journal. Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (primarily temperature, animal, auroral, and magnetic observations). Explorer’s Club Inventory 2003-007. Each page bears stamp reading: “Recovered by Robert E. Peary, C. E., U.S.N., from Fort Conger, May, 1899, under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club, and by it restored to the United States, December, 1899.

Greely, Adolphus W. These volumes are in good condition and show none of the wear seen in other Fort Conger books.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

The official records of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-84) at the Explorers Club include the Daily Journal, copies of Letters sent, and the Sledge Journal.

Ned Myers; Or, A Life before the Mast.

Cooper, James Fenimore. New Edition. Edited by J. Fenimore Cooper. Two Volumes. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1854. [First published in 1840.].
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

An 1840 Cooper work in which he served as amanuensis in telling the narrative of Ned Evans attempting to “lay before the world the experience of a common seaman,” such as Cooper himself knew, and which follows that pattern of degradation and conversion. I confess to an early impression that the work was more novel than narrative, and it certainly is an hybrid genre of edited narrative, or a semi-imaginary reconstruction. The repeated cycle of debauchment does become tiresome.

The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture.

Robinson, Michael. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 61-62, re Hayes expedition of 1860, amidst other calamities: …two local Danish naturalists accused William Longshaw, the expedition’s surgeon, of stealing their books and natural history specimens. A search of Longshaw’s trunk turned up some of the missing items. With the Danish community in an uproar, Hayes quietly sent Longshaw home, where the surgeon told surprised reporters that he had returned because of snow blindness. But this did not silence talk about Longshaw’s actions in Greenland. “This surgeon’s rascality,” Grinnell fumed, “had spread the whole length of the Greenland coast." And it would soon spread further. By the spring of 1861, Grinnell would learn the full story of the scandal from his son, who reported from England that the matter had become a topic of conversation among British explorers.

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
 Preview 

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:

The Tactless Philosopher: Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798).

Hoare, Michael E. Melbourne, Aus.: Hawthorn Press, 1976.
  • 1772-75 British Naval Expedition–Second Voyage (Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution).
  • “Discovery” of Antarctica.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A straightforward biography of Forster, the Anglo-German naturalist who replaced Sir Joseph Banks on Cook’s Second Voyage (1772-75), along with his son George.

Ned Myers; or, A Life before the Mast.

Cooper, James Fenimore. In Two Volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1843.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

An 1840 Cooper work in which he served as amanuensis in telling the narrative of Ned Evans attempting to “lay before the world the experience of a common seaman,” such as Cooper himself knew, and which follows that pattern of degradation and conversion. I confess to an early impression that the work was more novel than narrative, and it certainly is an hybrid genre of edited narrative, or a semi-imaginary reconstruction, in which the narrator [Cooper?] is telling the story of Ned Myers. The repeated cycle of debauchment does become tiresome.

Literacy, Literature and Libraries in the Fur Trade,

Payne, Michael. by Michael Payne and Gregory Thomas. The Beaver 45 (Spring 1983) p. 44-53.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 44: However fortunately for me I have dead Friends (my Books) who will never abandon me, till I first neglect them. [Daniel Williams Harmon at Fort Alexandria in 1803.]

Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert Land, 1821-31….

Rupert’s Land. Northern Department. Edited by R. Harvey Fleming. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1940.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 60, minutes of July 5, 1823, minutes of Council: 153. That for the more effectual civilization and moral improvement of the families attached to the different establishments and the Indians—Every Sunday when circumstances permit, divine Service be publickly read with becoming solemnity…., at which ever man woman and child resident must attend, together with such of the Indians who may be at hand… 154. That for this purpose, the requisite supply of Religious Books be imported by and at the expense of the Company, to consist of Books of Common Prayer of Sermons & Bibles”—also sermons in French for Canadians. [An item in 1824 added the urging of Parents to teach A.B.C. Catechism. Similar entries appeared in the next four years. See also pages 121, 135, 174, 201, and 230-31.]

The Light that Failed.

Kipling, Rudyard. Revised ed. New York 1899.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The Memorial University in St Johns, Newfoundland, has a copy of Kipling’s The Light that Failed. (Revised ed. New York 1899). It has a note on the cover that “This book was on the “Roosevelt” 83 degrees North, the time Perry [Peary] discovered the North Pole 1909.” Question is whether this might have been a title from the American Seamen’s Friend Society portable library that went on that voyage and is now at Mystic Seaport library, but lacking the books from the box.

An Evangelical Christian on Franklin’s Last Expedition: Lieutenant John Irving of HMS Terror,

Lloyd-Jones, Ralph. Polar Record 33 (October 1997) 327-32.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

Irving, an officer on Franklin’s Terror, died on King William Island, and his bones were found by Lt. Frederick Schwatka in June 1879 between Victory Point and Cape Jane Franklin. His remains were returned to Scotland and he was reburied in Edinburgh in 1881.

Roald Amundsen.

Bomann-Larsen, Tor. Foreword by Pen Hadow. Translated by Ingrid Christophersen. Stroud, Glocs., UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

Bomann attempts to do to Amundsen what Huntford did to Scott. Most of the time he refers to Amundsen as “the polar explorer” as if he thought himself the only one. Apart from a reference to Amundsen’s childhood reading of and fascination with Sir John Franklin, I found nothing about reading.