Zoology. 1845. Survey of the Voyage.

Hooker, Joseph Dalton. [Not found in WorldCat].
  • 1839-42 British Antarctic Expedition (James Clark Ross/Terror and Erebus).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. xii: Most especially does he find it incumbent on him here to return thanks to the Commanding Officer of the expedition (as is his first duty)… for the generous manner in which that officers’ private cabin and library were unreservedly placed at his disposal during the whole time the expedition was afloat.

Miscellaneous Materials.

Bartlett, Bob (Robert A.).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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While most of these texts record observations and actions, on three occasions Bartlett mentions his reading, an activity that explorers on other expeditions often used to stave off boredom. Lists of books read can indicate something about the mental life and preoccupations of figures who otherwise restrict their accounts to facts and action. A significant choice for Bartlett on this expedition was Bernacci’s book on the Antarctic xxxx, read on and about July 15 [1909], when Bartlett still believed that Peary’s Antarctic expedition would happen. On that day Bartlett records, “Commander was asking me about the new Antarctic ship, how I would wish her built. I told him how if it comes off, I will have some of my ideas put into practice.” Bartlett refers on June 11 to Robert Falcon Scott’s observation about grounded seals, but does not indicate whether this knowledge was from a recent reading experience (June 11) or from general knowledge. He also reported reading a novel by Elizabeth Robins, Come and Find Me, lent to him by Peary, that he did not enjoy (June 13th). “It’s a story something in the style of Man’s woman [by Frank Norris]. It’s rather a long spun out yarn. I did not care much about it.” This evaluation, coming from Bartlett, is somewhat surprising since Bartlett’s own natural style, seen in his later books as characterized by others, was exceedingly “spun out,” bordering on the garrulous.

A Book of Book Lists.

Johnson, Alex. London: British Library, 2017.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 63-66, Scott’s Discovery Library, 1901. A listing of the major polar titles from the Catalogue of the Discovery, from Scott’s first expedition, together with brief commentary, plus a list of books present on his cabin shelves aboard Endurance(1914-17).;

The Light that Failed.

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

Danish Greenland: Its People and Its Products

Rink, Henry. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown. London: Henry S. King, 1877.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 168: on training of indigenous boys: The author cannot omit adding one instance to illustrate this. Once he took such a boy with him to Denmark, where he stayed only one winter as apprentice in a printing-office, and acquired a skill in book-printing, lithography, and bookbinding, of which he has afterwards given proofs by managing, all by himself, without the least assistance, a small office in Greenland, the productions of which will be mentioned by and by. This young man is by no means a rare exception; perhaps one out of ten may be found to be equally highly gifted. It cannot be denied that the half-breeds seem to surpass the original race as regards such perfectibility.

Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The Story of the Square-Rigged Merchant Marine of British North America, the Ships, Their Builders and Owners, and the Men Who Sailed Them.

Wallace, Frederick William. New York: George Sully & Company, 1924.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Largely an encomium to the British men and ships operating in what is now known as Canada, with emphasis on the maritime provinces. There is a great deal of information about the building and history of Canadian, particularly those of Nova Scotia, but nothing I could find on the provision of reading matter. Probably the officers and men were too busy setting speed records.

Antarctic Odyssey.

Law, Phillip. Melbourne: Heinemann, 1983.
  • 1952-53 Australian Heard Island Expedition; 1959-60 Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A history of the early years of ANARE, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition, by its original Director, and starting with its two island stations at Macquarrie Island and Heard Island and later the Mawson station at Horseshoe Harbour. It’s not a particularly inspired account, and it exhibits a certain solemn narcissism. But it does have some dramatic moments (e.g. the Hurricane) and some useful chapters on issues of administration, the psychological aspects of personnel selection, and questions regarding design of materials to be used at ANARE bases, from prefabricated huts to clothing.

Trial by Ice: The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition.

Parry, Richard. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A rather pedestrian and purple account of the Polaris expedition of 1871, the death of Charles F. Hall, the separation of the ship from several of the crew, the stranded sailors’ remarkable survival, and the whitewash of the inquiry into the fate of Hall and the expedition.

Mathew Fontaine Maury, Father of Oceanography: A Biography, 1806-1873.

Grady, John.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Summary [from ABEBooks]: In becoming "a useful man" on the maritime stage, Matthew Fontaine Maury focused light on the ills of a clique-ridden Navy, charted sea lanes and bested Great Britain's admiralty in securing the fastest, safest routes to India and Australia. He helped bind the Old and New worlds with the laying of the transatlantic cable, forcefully advocated Southern rights in a troubled union, and preached Manifest Destiny from the Arctic to Cape Horn. Late in life, he revolutionized warfare in perfecting electronically detonated mines. Maury's eagerness to go to the public in person and in print on the questions of the day riled powerful men in business and politics, and the U.S., Confederate and Royal navies. They dismissed him as the "Man on the Hill." Over his career, Maury more than once ran afoul of Jefferson Davis, and Stephen R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy. He argued against eminent members of the nation's emerging scientific community in a decades-long debate over science for its own sake versus science for the people's sake. Through the political, social and scientific struggles of his time, however, Maury had his share of powerful allies, like President John Tyler; but by the early 1870s they, too, were in eclipse or in the grave.

A Series of Fourteen Sketches Made during the Voyage up Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin and the Missing Crews of H.M. Discovery-Ships Erebus and Terror, Together with a Short Account of Each Drawing. By Commander Walter W. May, R. N. Late Lieutenant of H.M. Discovery ship Assistance (Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B.)

May, Walter W. London, Published May 1855 by Day & Son, Lithographers to the Queen, 6-7-8-9 Gate Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Fourteen remarkable lithographs, preceded by succinct descriptions of each, from Disco, to Beechy Island, to Wellington Channel, including sketches of sledge parties on the ice. May himself was a Lieutenant on the Assistance before it was abandoned. Last plate show relics of Franklin that Dr. Rae had found. Final part of description lists officers on all five of Belcher’s ships: Assistance, Resolute, Pioneer, North Star, and Intrepid.

In Search of a Polar Continent, 1905-1907.

Harrison, Alfred H. London: Edward Arnold, 1908.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 22, re the Catholic mission at Resolution: The children are not only educated but clothed and fed. The girls are taught how to sew and how to make their own clothes, as well as how to read and write; whilst the boys, who are also trained in these latter academic, if elementary, exercises, acquire a variety of crafts which will be useful—in fact indispensable—to them in afterlife.

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: