This is the first scholarly study of the Royal Navy during the reigns of Charles II and James II. Historians have long viewed the Restoration Navy through the eyes of Samuel Pepys, the greatest diarist and naval administrator of the age. Perceptive and intelligent as Pepys was, he presented only a one-sided view of the Navy, that of a bureaucrat attempting to reorganize it. Davies assesses this traditional picture of the Restoration Navy in the light of recent scholarship, using the evidence not only of Pepys but of his contemporaries. He examines the reactions of naval personnel to the demands imposed by Pepys, and analyzes the structure of the service. He also explores the lives and attitudes of the men (the "tarpaulins") and their officers - the quests for promotion, enrichment, and glory; the very different problems posed by peace and war; the nature of life at sea; and the role of the Navy in national life.
Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
The Rainbow in the North: A Short Account of the First Establishment of Christianity in Rupert’s Land.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Tucker’s book attempts to vindicate the subjugation of a “barbaric” and “savage” people; people who are uncertain in their survival which “arises very much from their deeply-rooted habits of improvidence” (p. 11). His pride in conversions of the natives thanks to his piety, is belied by an obvious transience of such success. His prose is too unctuous to need repeating here, a significant contrast to the more thoughtful Archdeacon of the Yukon sixty years later. A few samples will suffice.
Footsteps on the Ice: The Antarctic Diaries of Stuart D. Paine, Second Byrd Expedition.
- 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Paine was hired mainly as dog-driver for the expedition but was also used as a radio operator, maintenance man, and navigator, and is the only published diarist of the trip. He faithfully records what he is reading.
Tales of the Ocean, and Essays for the Forecastle: Containing Matters and Incidents Humorous, Pathetic Romantic and Sentimental.
- Whalemen's Reading
An interesting combination of swashbuckling adventure and some appeal to puritan values.
The American Traveller: Or, Observations on the Present State, Culture and Commerce of the British Colonies in America.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Cluny wrote this after a year at HBC’s York Factory, attacking the Company for its monopoly and the suspicion they were hiding knowledge of the Northwest Passage.
White-Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War.
- Arctic Reading: General
Chapter 41 “A Man-of-War Library”
Under the Pole Star: The Oxford University Expedition, 1935-6.
- 1935-36 Oxford University North East Land Spitzbergen Expedition (led by Alexander Glen).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
A British expedition to North East Land of Spitsbergen, with a mixture of English and Norwegian crew, scientists and sailors. Glen was the expedition leader and wrote this account with a debonair and detached style. The assignment was to survey the north east region of the archipelago. Obviously this was a bookish group who did a good deal of reading but seldom reporting on what they were reading. The author himself seems prone to boredom and speaks of it fairly often.
Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt: Only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston, During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years among the Savages of Nootka Sound… .
- Whalemen's Reading
Jewett’s first voyage in 1803 involved some whaling and sealing in the Pacific Northwest, but it was a short time before the ship was captured by the Nootka people and most of the crew killed. Most of the book is devoted to his 28 months of captivity, and his analysis of the Nootka natives.
Outfits for a Whaling Voyage.
- Whalemen's Reading
p. 3: outline has as its last item: “Ship’s library”:
On the Arctic Frontier: Ernest Leffingwell’s Polar Explorations and Legacy
- 1906-07 Anglo-American Polar Expedition (Ernest Leffingwell).
- Arctic Reading: United States
A biography of Leffingwell based on his papers at Dartmouth, extending from his participation in the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition of 19
‘Heroism displayed’: revisiting the Franklin Gallery at the Royal Naval Exhibition, 1891.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Excellent article on the use by Clements Markham and others to reignite interest in Arctic exploration through a blockbuster exhibition of 1891, reinforcing romantic, patriotic, heroic, and other ideals from past British history.
This Frozen World: The Polar Diaries of Alfred Wright Stuart.
- 1958-62 Operation Deep Freeze.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Stuart was chosen to serve as a geologist based at McMurdo starting in 1958, at the end of the IGY.
Logbook for Grace: Whaling Brig Daisy, 1912-1913.
- 1912-13 American Whaling Expedition (Daisy).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
An engaging account by a 25-year-old naturalist of a whaling voyage to South Georgia in 1912, taking the form of a log written to and for his new wife, Grace. Witty and reflective, including lots of material on his own reading and library, mostly during the ship’s passage through the tropics.
To the South Polar Regions: Expedition of 1898-1900.
- 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Hardly the most scintillating of Antarctic narratives, but fascinating for the way in which Bernacchi ignores the presence of Borchgrevink, referring to him only as the commander (almost never by name), never giving him any role in the expedition. See Janet Crawford’s edition above for a more candid account of the expedition. Bernacchi’s emphasis was always on science and much of this account is a description of what he and his colleagues found, indicating other avenues of exploration. There are many literary allusions and quotations, but little indication of what he read aboard ship or while wintering at Cape Adare.
Along the Labrador Coast.
- 1900? US private Summer Expedition for Birding and Touring the Labrador Coast.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
It is hard to determine from this book or the internet the date of this engaging tourist journal of the Labrador outports. On p. 98 he refers to the 230 years that the Hudson’s Bay Company had been trading furs from the natives; with a founding date of 1670 we can infer a 1900 date for the trip. He also there notes “No wonder the letters have been interpreted “Here before Christ,” for the company generally get ahead of the missionaries.