The Life of Charles Dickens.

Forster, John. Three Volumes. Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1871.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 482, from Volume III: It is also to be noted as in the same spirit, that it was not the loud but the silent heroisms he most admired. Of Sir John Richardson, one of the few who have lived in our days entitled to the name of a hero, he [Dickens] wrote from Paris in 1856. ‘Lady Franklin sent me the whole of that Richardson memoir; and I think Richardson’s manly friendship, and love of Franklin, one of the noblest things I ever knew in my life. It makes one’s heart beat high, with a sort of sacred joy.’ (It is the feeling as strongly awakened by the earlier exploits of the same gallant man to be found at the end of Franklin’s first voyage, and never to be read without the most exalted emotion.)

Diary of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition and New Zealand’s IGY Participation December 1956 to February 1958.

Carlyon, Roy.
  • 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Transcript of personal diary of Roy Carlyon, covering the period December 1956-February 1958, which he spent as a member of the New Zealand contingent of a joint British/New Zealand Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It’s unclear from the OCLC entry as to where the original manuscript diary is, but two copies of a transcript are at the University of Canterbury Library (Christchurch) and the University of Waikato Library. Carlyon seems to have been a prodigious reader. While at Scott Base during the first winter months of late April to mid-July, 1957, Carylon mentions the following books:

Review of J. M. Barrie’s Half-Hours,London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914, and The Voyages of Captain Scott, by Charles Turley, London: Smith Elder, 1914.

London Evening Standard, Nov. 12, 1914.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Anonymous review of an early piece of Scott hagiography: The other book is a memorial of one of the most gallant Englishmen who ever went forth on a high adventure and snatched lasting victory out of failure and death…. Mr. Turley has retold, in Captain Scott’s own words as far as possible, the two great stories, putting them into so convenient a form that no boy or man can be repelled by the presence of detail, scientific or otherwise, inessential to the greatness of the tale.

Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage.

McGoogan, Ken. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2017.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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McGoogan claims to bring a new integrative emphasis to the indigenous elements involved in the search for the Northwest Passage adding to the British focus on the Royal Navy. The work is a broad overview of this history but not so innovative as it seems to claim. His final chapter 32 is called “Erebus and Terror Validate Inuit Testimony,” citing the discovery of the two ships (2014, 2016) as Inuit Vindication.

An Account of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage by Hudson’s Streights, to the Western and Southern Ocean of America. Performed in the Year 1746 and 1747, in the Ship California, Capt. Francis Smith , Commander. By the Clerk of the California.

Swaine, Theodore. Two volumes. London: Jolliffe, Corbett, and Clarke, 1748.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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The little found in these volumes concerning reading and writing has to do with the documents of the expedition itself, as well as the account of earlier voyages.

Papers.

Heilprin, Angelo. Academy of Natural Sciences Philadelphia. Mss. 147 (1).
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Among Angelo Heilprin Papers was a folder marked Peary Relief Expedition, an 1892 expedition in which Heilprin was involved aboard the Kite. However, the folder is mislabeled and refers not to Peary but to the Greely Relief Expedition of 1883 aboard the Proteus under the command of Lt. Garlington. There is a diary of 14 pages written by a member of that expedition, covering the period from July 19 to August 10. This was the period during which the Proteus was nipped and sank on July 23, 1883. There is an eye-witness account of the sinking, as well as passages concerning the landing of provisions from the wreck onto the ice.

Work and Adventures of the Northern Party of Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1913.

Priestley, Raymond E. Geographical Journal 43 No. 1(Jan. 1914) 1-14.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 11: Every Saturday evening we held a singsong, when every man participated to the best of his ability. Every Sunday we managed to scrape together at least a dozen hymns and a couple of Psalms, and Campbell read us a chapter of the New Testament, of which we had a pocket edition. The other three books we possessed, ‘David Copperfield,’ ‘Simon the Jester,’ and Balfour’s ‘Life of Stevenson,’ were successively read, one chapter a night, by Levick. Every subject of conversation was thrashed out again and again until it was pretty well threadbare, and the only things we were careful to avoid were questions on which either of us had much at heart.

Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1825, 1826, and 1827,… Including an Account of the Progress of a Detachment to the Eastward, by John Richardson.

Franklin, John, Sir. London: John Murray, 1828. [Facsimile ed. NY: Greenwood Press, 1969].
  • 1819-22 and 1825-27 John Franklin Overland Journeys with John Richardson.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. xvii, on supplies for the expedition: There was likewise an ample stock of tobacco, a small quantity of wine and spirits, marquees and tents for the men and officers, some books, writing and drawing paper, a considerable quantity of cartridge-paper, to be used in preserving specimens of plants…together with many articles to be used at winter-quarters, for the service of the post, and for the supply of our Indian hunters….

Étoffe du pays: Lower St. Lawrence Sketches.

Simms, Florence Mary. Toronto: Musson, n.d.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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This alleged children’s book is undated but probably describes events and publication of the mid-1920s. A couple of jems are worth recording from this delightful book:

Diary, Nov 5, 1914 to Dec 1915

[Author?]. SPRI MS 1605/1/2. [in SPRI numbering, this comes after the later 1916 volume described below.].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 33 Jan 12th 1915: Started reading “Guinea Gold” by Beatrice Grimshaw.

Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries.

Mawson, Douglas. Edited by Fred Jacka & Eleanor Jacka. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Introduction emphasizes Mawson’s faith in “Providence,” and notes that his very survival reduced the emotional impact that Scott’s death had on the public: World War I, followed by world depression, diverted public interest from the achievements of Douglas Mawson and other scientists and explorers in the Antarctic, and formed a break between the ‘heroic era’ and the ‘mechanical era’ in the history of Antarctic exploration. (p. xlii).

Greenland, the Adjacent Seas, and the North-West Passage to the Pacific Ocean.

O’Reilly, Bernard. Illustrated in a Voyage to Davis’ Strait during the Summer of 1817. London: Baldwin, Craddock, & Joy, 1818.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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O'Reilly served as surgeon aboard a whale-ship, in order to gather scientific information on the northern regions. He gives much information concerning Arctic zoology, whale fishery, natural atmospheric phenomena, observations of magnetic variation, the history and habitation of Greenland, and observations concerning the possibility of a Northwest Passage." Field - "The observations of the author on the natives of Greenland, are recorded on pp. 52 and 85, of which the last two are occupied with a vocabulary of their language. Five of the plates are illustrative of the features, or habits of life of the Exquimaux." According to Abbey an article in the 'Quarterly Review' called the book 'a bare faced imposition.' Stanton & Tremaine mentions the book is said to have been plagiarized from material prepared by Sir Charles L. M. von Giescke. Hill: Pacific Voyages, p. 219. Field: Indian Bibliography, p. 297

Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923.

Grant, Shelagh D. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.
  • Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
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Fascinating book on the introduction of European-based law into a culture that had no reason to understand it, given its communitarian consensual approach to justice. Well-written and badly proofed, but worth the read.

Report on the Dominion of Canada Government Expedition to the Arctic Islands and Hudson Strait on Board the D.G.S. ‘Arctic’.

Bernier, J. E. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1910.
  • 1908-10 Canadian Arctic Expedition to Northern Waters (aboard Arctic commanded by J. E. Bernier).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Bernier’s voyage in 1908-10 was for the purpose of regulating fishing and assure Canadian sovereignty over these large fishing and whaling grounds. Bernier includes a concise summary of previous polar expeditions (p. 17-22), presumably based partly on collections aboard the ship. Unaccountably he skips the period between Ross in 1818 and Inglefield in 1852, excluding both Parry and Franklin though both figure elsewhere in the book.