Elephant Island and Beyond: The Life and Diaries of Thomas Orde Lees.

Orde Lees, Thomas. Edited by John Thomson. Bluntisham, Hunts., UK: Bluntisham Books, 2003.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A selection from the meticulous diaries of Orde Lees, who as chief of supplies and provisions was the least popular member of the Shackleton Endurance expedition, but nonetheless a fair, scrupulous, and fastidious store-master on the journey. Traces his aristocratic background and some of its effect on fellow crew members who could deride his chronic sea-sickness, or even accuse him of cowardice. Apart from his sometimes fawning attitude to Sir Ernest, it is a responsible piece of work.

A Brief Narrative of an Unsuccessful Attempt to Reach Repulse Bay, through Sir Thomas Rowe’s Welcome, in His Majesty’s Ship Griper, in the Year 1824

Lyon, George Francis. London: John Murray, 1825.
  • 1824 British Voyage to Repulse Bay (aboard Griper, commanded by Captain George F. Lyon).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 27: The agreeable visits from ship to ship, which so pleasingly break in on the monotony of a Polar voyage, were now denied us, but I was amply compensated for the want of a more extensive society, by having the happiness of knowing that I had officers and men with whom I was confident of continuing on the most friendly terms. We had already in our passage across the Atlantic arranged our little plans of improvement and amusement, and I looked forward with pleasure to the approach of winter.

Writing the New World: Imaginary Voyages….

Fausset, David. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1993.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 3, the exotic literature of Europe: … most clearly manifested in fiction about the regions that remained unknown the longest….their works, too, would finally be overtaken by history and supplanted by scientific descriptions of the material and social worlds. [Fausset’s examples are Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Poe, Lovecraft.]

Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex

Chase, Owen.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Owen Chase's memoir of the sinking of the Essex by a whale, which inspired Herman Melville's epic Moby-Dick and the film In the Heart of the Sea. Owen Chase was the first mate on the ill-fated American whaling ship Essex, which was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific Ocean in 1820. The crew spent months at sea in leaking boats and endured the blazing sun, attacks by killer whales, and lack of food. The men were forced to resort to cannibalism before the final eight survivors were rescued. Chase recorded the tale of the ship's sinking and the following events with harrowing clarity in the Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex: "I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots.

The Strange and Dangerovs Voyage of Captaine Thomas Iames, in His Intended Discovery of the Northwest Passage into the South Sea….

James, Thomas. London, Legatt, 1633. [Reprint in Hakluyt Society edition of the Voyages of Luke Foxe and Thomas James. Two volumes. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1894). The James account is in Vol. II, p. 451-611.].
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 606, in a list of instruments provided for his voyage are a number of books: 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.

From Edinburgh to the Antarctic: An Artist’s Notes and Sketches during the Dundee Antarctic Expedition 1892-93, with a Chapter by W. S. Bruce.

Burn Murdoch, William Gordon. Bungay, Suffolk: Paradigm Press, Bluntisham Books, 1984. [Facsimile of 1894 London first edition.].
  • 1892-93 British Whaling Expedition(Alexander Fairweather aboard Balæna et al).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

One of the most delightful, witty, sardonic, and intelligent of early Antarctic accounts. Burn Murdoch shipped aboard the Balæna with his friend William Speirs Bruce in 1892. This is an account of that journey. Bruce, later well-known for the Scotia expedition, was the ship’s surgeon and naturalist and Murdoch assistant surgeon and ship’s artist. This expedition recorded the first photographs of Antarctica. Murdoch has a good deal of respect for the intelligence of the foc’sle men.

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:

Dr. Kane’s Voyage to the Polar Lands.

Villarejo, Oscar M. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. 23: Amos Bonsall, the last living survivor of the Kane expedition, was the officer of the brig ‘Advance’ who was in charge of making daguerreotypes for the expedition. Although the U.S. Navy had provided the ‘Advance’ with the apparatus for taking daguerreotypes of the arctic scenes which Bonsall and his companions were to encounter at unprecedented latitudes, the labors of Bonsall as the ship’s photographic chronicler came to a disastrous end in the year 1855. As Bonsall says…, the results of his work ‘were lost on our return. The box containing the daguerreotypes was put upon a sledge on the ice, and was carried away, together with the whole collection of Arctic birds, which had been prepared with great care for the Academy of Natural Science. This was an irreparable loss, and one to this day I have never ceased to regret.’ [See Rudolf Kersting, The White World, “After Fifty Years.”]

The Red River Library: A Search after Knowledge and Refinement.

Castling, Leslie D. Readings in Canadian Library History. Edited by Peter McNally. Toronto: Canadian Library Association, 1986, p. 153-66.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 154: Consequently, books were introduced into the colony only a year after the first party of settlers arrived at York Factory in 1812. The children “were instructed in arithmetic, reading, and writing, using books furnished at Selkirk’s expense from the British and Foreign School Society.” Lord Selkirk was very involved in ordering book sources for the community. HBD conducted an inventory including books in 1822, and again in 1825.

The Belgian Antarctic Expedition under the Command of Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery. Summary Report of the Voyage of “Belgica” of 1897–1898–1899.

Gerlache de Gomery, Adrien de. Brusselles: Hayez, 1904.
  • 1897-99 Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gerlache de Gomery aboard Belgica).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

p. 11: The forecastle for the crew was spacious, well-ventilated and lighted by a large skylight. It contained sixteen berths, supplied with good mattresses and warm woolen blankets.

Deadly Winter: The Life of Sir John Franklin.

Beardsley, Martyn. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

A facile and not very original biography of Franklin, sloppily edited and proofread, but a decent enough overview.