Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific; Performed in the Years 1821-22-23, in His Majesty’s Ships Fury and Hecla, Under the Orders of Captain William Edward Parry, R.N/. F.R.S., and Commander of the Expedition.

Parry, William Edward. London: John Murray, 1824.
  • 1821–23 Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage (in Fury and Hecla, under William Edward Parry).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Parry’s second voyage involved two year’s of winterovering in Winter Harbour, including a number of interactions with natives. There is little here on reading,unlike Lyon’s earlier private journal.

The Cruise of the ‘Antarctic’ to the South Polar Regions.

Bull, Henrik Johan. London, New York: Edward Arnold, 1896.
  • 1893-95 Norwegian Whaling Expedition (Henrik Bull aboard Antarctic).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Essentially a Norwegian/English whaling and sealing expedition in which the crew suffered no major deprivations or hardships other than hurricanes around the Kerguélens where the ship chiefly spent the ‘summer’ of 1893-94 before returning to Melbourne. The first part of the expedition made catches of £3000 pounds in value, but an intermediate voyage during the winter to the Campbell Islands almost wrecked the ship [Bull was back in Australia] and repairs ate up all the profits.

Miscellaneous notes, etc. from diaries.

Orde Lees, Thomas. SPRI MS 967/3/2.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Includes a list of books that seems to serve as something of a circulation record as well, indicating the person who had the book and in some cases gives a date of Jan 31which may have indicated a loan period. It does not include everything known to have made it to Elephant Island, such as 5 vols. of the Britannica. In fact few of the items on this list did make it beyond Dump Camp.

Antarctic Night

Bursey, Jack. New York: Rand McNally, 1957.
  • 1928-56 Expeditions of Rear Admiral Richard Byrd.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Bursey participated in three Byrd-related expeditions in 1928-1930; 1931-41; and 1955-57. He grew up in northern Newfoundland and claims to have read everything he could find on Antarctica while a youth and went on to be an apparently successful dog handler in all three expeditions. His book is a paean to the continent and its sheer magnetism to the smitten, and he expresses its pull chiefly through cliché. If he read more about Antarctica or anything else you won’t find out from this book. He does refer to the fine libraries in the first and third expeditions, but mainly he describes parts of the end of the world where no man has ever tread before, and similar bromides.

The Lord’s Librarians: The American Seamen’s Friend Society and their Loan Libraries 1837-1967

Stam, David H. . Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime History III no. 1 (2012) 59 p. Online through National Maritime Digital Library.
  • Maritime Reading
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p. 1 Abstract: "The Lord's Librarians" describes in new detail the activities of the American Seamen's Friend Society in distributing loan libraries to merchant and naval ships for over 130 years. Based on the archives of the Society in the G.W. Blunt White Library at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the study examines the history of the Society in its efforts towards moral improvement of seamen, fostering temperance, reducing licentiousness, encouraging Sabbath worship and observation, countering swearing, and promoting thrift and financial responsibility among sailors. It examines the largely evangelical collection development policies for these compact 40-45 volume library boxes, and attempts to locate the surviving boxes and surviving books from these libraries. It ends with some unanswered questions which deserve further study.

A Woman’s Trip to Alaska, Being an Account of a Voyage through the Inland Seas of the Sitkan Archipelago in 1890.

Collis, Septima M. New York: Cassell Publishing, 1890.
  • 1890 US Tourist Voyage to Alaska (Septima Collis).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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An unusual woman’s trip for the time, written to encourage other women to abandon their grand tours in favor of this northern one. Miss Collis proves to be a self-indulgent, spoiled wealthy New Yorker, with no sympathy for the natives who “should be coerced into good behavior” (p. 15). She was a Jewish southerner who married a Philadelphia soldier, a general in the Civil War. She travelled with him during the war and wrote a book about her experiences in a divided family. That may be a better book than this self-indulgent one.

Nelson.

Walder, David. (New York: Dial Press, 1978).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. xii: Meanwhile, The Times of October 10, 1843, reported the presence in Exeter of a rather unusual survival from Trafalgar. Mrs Sara Frank Pitt, the widow of a marine, had been on board Victory, and during the battle had been employed with other sailors’ wives in the customary duty of carrying powder up from the magazines to the guns. Hearing a false report of her husband’s death, she had rushed on deck to be reassured by his presence, but to see Nelson fall, mortally wounded. She subsequently buried a boy of hers at Alexandria and another near Sicily, and now in her old age, without child or husband, she I left totally destitute, without kin or associate, with no consolation but the recollection of the glorious bloody scenes in which she spent the early portion of her married life.’ Naturally enough, perhaps, Mrs Pitt was not anxious to join the procession of 200 Trafalgar veterans now being collected together for the unveiling ceremony [in Trafalgar Square], but she wished it to be known that if there should be ‘any distribution in largesse in commemoration of the victory’ she would ‘be thankful to receive a portion’.

Utopia and Other Places.

Eyre, Richard. London: Bloomsbury, 1993.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 14-22, Eyre’s grandfather, Lt. Royds, was on first Scott expedition, and Eyre talks about the journals he owns (now recently published). Royds had a crustacean named after him, Royds is Formosa (p. 18), and read Cook (p. 14). His copy of the Discovery Library Catalogue is now at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, NZ.

The Journal of Annie Holes Ricketson on the Whaleship A. R. Tucker, 1871-1874.

Ricketson, Annie Holmes. From the Original in the Kendall Whaling Museum. New Bedford, MA: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1958.
  • 1871-74 American Whaling Expedition to Indian Ocean (aboard A. R. Tucker).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A good example of the so-called petticoat whaler, the Captain’s wife. This is a fairly calm memoir with some observations about the business of whaling, and frequent reference to books, newspapers, and letters but seldom with any reading details.

Journal of a Voyage Around the World: A Year on the Ship

King, Thomas Worthington. Helena (1841-1842). (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003).
  • 1841-42 American Circumnavigation (aboard Helena).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Although not Antarctic bound, this ship did round Cape Horn and reached almost 59 degrees. King was a recent Harvard graduate when he took this voyage from New York to Canton, and after brief work there he continued on another ship back to New York. He was a fast reader and regular in his comments about reading.

The Rescue of Captain Scott.

Aldridge, Don. East Lothian, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 1999.
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A judicious debunking of the Scott myths which had in turn rescued him from mediocrity. Draws on Huntford and many others to show Scott as inept, petulant, and egomaniacal.