Ancestral Voices.

Lees-Milne, James. London, New York, 1975.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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p. 31-32 describes a visit to Lord & Lady Kennet's home in 1942: Lord Kennet was luckily in bed with bronchitis so we were alone. K as outgiving as ever. The first glimpse of her showed how she is ageing. Her figure is noticeably spread, and not mitigated by the shapeless, sacklike garments she always wears. She is the worst-dressed woman I know; and rejoices in a sort of aggressive no-taste in clothes and house.

The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic expedition.

Alexander, Caroline. New York: Knopf, 1998.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A succinct and well-illustrated account of the epic voyage, though not without faults (e.g. she doesn’t have Cherry in Scott’s SP journey, there is no index, and citations are wholly inadequate). But she does use Hurley photographs to good effect.

Glimpses of the Northland: Sketches of Life among the Cree and Salteaux Indians.

Santmier, Arthur. Chicago: Published for the Author by S. K. J. Chesbro, 1905.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 28: At God’s Lake the work of teaching a school was of a different character. No missionary or teacher had been stationed there, and parents and children were alike totally ignorant of the nature of a school. I arrived at God’s Lake in early September and at once commenced work. The church was a slimsy structure, very cold, and the roof leaked so badly as to render it untenable in rainy weather. There were no desks, chairs or black boards. A few books and slates I brought from Oxford House. A number of children were orphans. I plainly announced in the preceding Sabbath services that only children of school age, that is, from six to fourteen years, would be received, and that I did not conduct a nursery, nor did I want a wife, and therefore grown-up girls could not attend the school, for their sole object in coming was to impress the school-teacher with their charms and thus win a husband if possible.

A Briefe Historie of Muscovia.

Milton, John. Vol. III. Complete Prose Works. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 524: The discovery of Russia by the northern Ocean, made first, of any Nation that we know, by English men, might have seem’d an enterprise almost heroick; if any higher end than the excessive love of Gain and Traffick, had animated the design. Nevertheless that in regard that may things not unprofitable to the knowledge of nature, and other Observations are hereby come to light, as good events ofttimes arise from evil occasions, it will not be the worst labour to relate briefly the beginning, and prosecution of this adventurous Voiage; until it became at last a familiar Passage.

A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-East towards Cathay and China, Undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595, and 1596. …

Veer, Gerrit de. Translated into English by William Phillip. Edited by Charles T. Beke. London: Hakluyt Society, 1853.[1ser, no. 13; a second edition appeared in 1876 as 1series, no. 54].
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. lix-lxii: The introduction has an inventory of the many relics found at the final site of Barents fatal expedition. No 75 includes the following items: A great number of prints from copper engravings, completely frozen together, including some of Goltzius; Pallas, Juno, and Venus, with Bosscher excudit; scenes from the Bible. “The manner of engraving the names of the engravers proves that all these must have been the work of the sixteenth century. It may seem strange that Arctic navigators had prints or engravings on board, but it is not at all so, for Heemskerck and Barendsz intended to go as far as China, when they sailed to the North-East. For that purpose they had merchandise on board, and prints or engravings were often used as such.

Sir John Richardson: Arctic Explorer, Natural Historian, Naval Surgeon.

Johnson, Robert E. London: Taylor & Francis, 1976.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 71, when chief surgeon at Royal Naval Hospital Haslar: Richardson “was charged with caring for the hospital’s library and museum…. Between 1840 and 1850, he built up an important facility for research in natural history …and a first-rate library of natural history.” Visitors included Darwin, Lyell, Gray, and Hooker.

Archives at Georgetown University

Green, Fitzhugh.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Green was ghostwriter for Byrd’s Skyward, participated in MacMillan’s Crocker Land Expedition, and was responsible for killing a native.

Frozen Ships: The Arctic Diary of Johann Miertsching, 1850-1854.

Miertsching, Johann. Translation and introduction by L. H. Neatby. New York: St. Martin’s Pres, 1967.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Quite a riveting account of the Investigator Franklin search expedition by a German Moravian minister, pious but human, who was assigned primarily as an interpreter. His reading naturally centers around scripture and tracts, but he has a healthy interest in most shipboard doings.

A Voyage to the South Sea, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies, in His Majesty’s Ship The Bounty, Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh….

Bligh, William. London: Printed for George Nicol, 1792.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 156, in the course of the mutiny: The boatswain and seamen, who were to go in the boat, were allowed to collect twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, an eight and twenty gallon cask of water, and Mr. Samuel got 150 lbs. of bread, with a small quantity of rum and wine, also a quadrant and compass; but he was forbidden, on pain of death, to touch either map, ephemeris, book of astronomical observations, sextant, time-keeper, or any of my surveys or drawings.

Through the Mackenzie Basin: A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899…. Also Notes on the Mammals and Birds of Northern Canada.

Mair, Charles. By Roderick MacFarlane. Toronto: William Briggs, 1908.
  • 1899 British Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 5-7, where the Preface provides a good introduction to the expedition and this book: The literature descriptive of Northern Canada, from the days of Hearne and Mackenzie to those of Tyrrell and Hanbury, is by no means scanty. A copious bibliography might be compiled of the records of its exploration with a view to trade, science, or sport, particularly in recent years; whilst the accounts of the search for Sir John Franklin furnish no inconsiderable portion of such productions in the past. These books are more or less available in our Public Libraries, and, at any rate, do not enter into consideration here. Such records, however, furnished almost our sole knowledge of the Northern Territories until the year 1888, when the first earnest effort of the Canadian Parliament was made "to inquire into the resources of the great Mackenzie Basin." …

Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole.

Nielsen, Jerri. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • 1998-99 South Pole Winterover (NSF) at Amundsen-Scott Base.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This book created considerable controversy by the author going public with her medical condition, despite commitments not to call for special services in case of serious illness. Her cancer was the cause.

The Floating Republic

Manwaring, George Ernest. . By George Manwaring and Bonamy Dobrée. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 15, on belowdecks life for British seamen: There was no leisure, no leave, no books, to qualify their miserable existence:* there was nothing to make a man feel himself a human being. [Footnote*: In 1812 a shocked Admiralty provided libraries, and the seaman’s life was rendered gayer by the availability of such books as the Old Chaplain’s Farewell Letter, The Whole Duty of Man, andAdvice after Sickness. (Hutchinson, 43.)

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
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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 Charles W. Morgan.

Leavitt, John F. Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport, 1973.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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The Morgan, fully restored in 2016, is now the flagship of Mystic Seaport. It is thought to be the last surviving whaler.