Another two-page typed list was prepared for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14 of which Mawson was the leader; some of those physical books are shown in the Jacka edition of the diaries, the 7th plate following p. 62, depicting Winter Quarters at Cape Denison. The diaries, originally held by the Mawson Institute of Antarctic Research at the University of Adelaide are now a part of the South Australian Museum. . I am most grateful to Mark Pharoah of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide for help in providing copies of the original lists.
Douglas Mawson Book List 1911-14
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
And the Whale is Ours: Creative Writing of American Whalemen.
- Whalemen's Reading
A book of extensive excerpts of whalemen’s own escape literature, their own personal journals, often sentimental claptrap about home, love, and death, but best when devoted to their trade of whaling which they tended to depict accurately and realistically.
The Adventures of Jack; or, A Life on the Wave
- Whalemen's Reading
Title page has this epigraph:
Autobiographical manuscript in the AMNH [RB Collection. J-3]
- Arctic Reading: United States
p. 1: Perhaps the first awakening of my interest in these regions came from reading Nansen’s “Farthest North.”
Battle for the Soul: Métis Children Encounter Evangelical Protestants at Mackinaw Mission, 1823-1837.
- Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
This deals mainly with a US phenomenon of attempted religious colonialism with relevance to Métis in Canada. It seems a good example of indoctrination requiring a degree of literacy devoid of independent thinking. An Anglo-Métis at Lake Leech in 1833 describes the house he built: Now comes the Door; next to which and hanging up is a frock coat. Then comes other articles in regular rotation, an old straw Hat, a violin with all its appendages; a small shelf upon which are the few books we possess; one or two cossets, an ax, a spade, Tobacco pouch etc.etc. (p. 12).
Journal of Transactions and Events, during a Residence of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador; Containing Many Interesting Particulars, Both of the Country and Its Inhabitants, Not Hitherto Known
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Townsend took six voyages to Labrador over sixteen years and this is his personal account of his experiences. Throughout the journal are many references to reading prayers to his family, sometimes twice a day.
Life Onboard an Emigrant Ship: Being a Diary of a Voyage to Australia.
- Whalemen's Reading
The Rev. Mereweather of the Anglican Church saw it as his unpaid duty to provide moral leadership to the “poorer classes” being conveyed to Australia. Proceeds from its sale would go to the Female Emigrant Society for that purpose.
Ten Months Among the Tents of the Tuski, with Incidents of an Arctic Boat Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, as far as the Mackenzie River, and Cape Bathurst.
- 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
William Hulme Hooper (1827-1854) was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and part of the 1848 expedition aboard the Plover, under the command of Capt. T. E. L. Moore, to search for the ill-fated Franklin expedition. Moore's expedition spent three years in the high Arctic, wintering the first year (1848-1849) on the Chukotsk Peninsula, later sailing to the Beaufort Sea. From there, Hooper made two overland trips up the Mackenzie River to Fort Simpson, on the second of which he travelled overland to Norway House, The Pas, and south through what is now Manitoba to reach the voyageur route back to Montreal, and thence to England (see Arctic Bibliography 7395). This is a very scarce account, seldom mentioned in most histories of Arctic exploration, and often overlooked in the lore of the search for Sir John Franklin and his party. Notwithstanding, Hooper's account is full of interesting information and observations, including detailed descriptions of the life, customs, dwellings, clothing and beliefs of the Chukchis (Tuski), and of the North Alaska Eskimo generally; as well as notes on the Mackenzie Eskimo and Indians, sea and river ice, hunting and trapping, and the character of the territory covered in his journeys.
Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer: The Life of Herbert Dyce Murphy.
- 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
A thoroughly fascinating account of a participant in Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911 which thoroughly debunks Mawson, only slightly more gently than Huntford did Scott.
Farthest North.
- 1893-96 Norwegian North Pole Expedition (Fridthof Nansen aboard Fram).
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
On Nansen’s 1893-96 Fram expedition and the first wintering over.
Griffith Taylor: Visionary Environmentalist Explorer.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Taylor was born in England but went to Australia at age 12, where he was a student of Edgeworth David, before studying in Cambridge 1907-09 (Emmanuel College). This biography presents him as a brilliant scientist but irascible, vain glorious, and sometimes mean-spirited. A geologist turned geographer he became an ardent geographic determinist, seeing both nature and man determined by their natural environment. He went on the Terra Nova expedition with Scott, and wrote about it in his With Scott: the Silver Lining, the silver lining being the scientific accomplishments of the expedition.
Antarctica, 1958,
- 1957- Operation Deep Freeze.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
In 1958, I was a duty helmsman on the bridge of the U.S.S. Arneb, an ungainly naval transport ship with the lines of a tramp steamer…. When I went below to crash, taking to my rack, which was at the top of a four-high tier. I lay down to read with my pocket flashlight. I had “Ulysses” checked out from the Norfolk, Virginia, public library, and plenty of time to be patient with it. When we started sliding to port, I’d stay with Leopold Bloom for as long as I could tough it out, waiting for the big lumbering ship to arrest its roll and come back to starboard…. Then I’d set my book aside and ponder my fortune….
Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, 1830-1870.
- Arctic Reading: United States
A delightful sociological study of American whaling and whalemen in the mid-nineteenth century, based largely on hundreds of sailors’ journals, diaries, and logs.
Voyage Round the World, Embracing the Principal Events of the United States Exploring Expedition, in One Volume.
- 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Although Antarctica was the chief object of study of the US Exploring Expedition (USExEx), much of Wilkes’ Voyage is an extensive travelogue of ports visited.
At the Mountains of Madness
- Maritime Reading
First published in 1931, this phantasmagoric combination of science fiction and horror novel is located on the high plateau of Antarctic, reached by airplane, but discovering the world’s highest mountains and remains of an ancient ‘civilization’ come back to life and destructive of the expedition.