Edge of the World: Ross Island Antarctica: A Personal and Historical Narrative.

Neider, Charles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Neider tells much of the history of Antarctic exploration by focusing on the geographic area of Ross Island and the Ross Sea. The book has a good series of maps which helped me understand what I have often found a confusing place. The book itself is highly derivative, including long passages quoted from some very familiar works of the explorers, from Ross onwards, including Scott and Shackleton, but it also recounts the author’s own experiences and near disasters on his Deep Freeze expeditions to McMurdo and travels elsewhere in Antarctica.

At the Mountains of Madness

Lovecraft, H. P. in At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels. (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1964).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

First published in 1931, this phantasmagoric combination of science fiction and horror novel is located on the high plateau of Antarctic, reached by airplane, but discovering the world’s highest mountains and remains of an ancient ‘civilization’ come back to life and destructive of the expedition.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

Bown, Stephen R. . Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Poorly documented, totally derivative (mainly from NY Times), this book is riddled with errors, but generally an engaging and respectful biography. Repeats story of Amundsen’s teenage reading of everything he could find on polar exploration, but adds something about a voyage from Spain to Florida. He is careful to emphasize Amundsen’s careful reading of fellow explorers and his use of that information to give himself an extra edge. For that Amundsen probably gets insufficient credit.

An Account of Several Late Voyages & Discoveries to the South and North towards the Streights of Magellan, the South Seas, the Vast Tracts of Land beyond Hollandia Nova, &c.: also towards Nova Zembla, Greenland or Spitsberg, by Sir John Narborough, Captain Jasmen Tasman, Captain John Wood, and Frederick Martin of Hamburgh….

Narbrough, John, Sir. (London: Printed for Sam Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1694).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

The purpose of this voyage was to establish trading relations between Britain and South America and the South Seas. Narborough did claim for Britain some territory in Argentina, lost some of his men as hostages in Peru, but failed in his primary mission.

The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice.

Jones, Max. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Book shows tensions of scientific contributions of polar exploration over against the macho, imperial, jingoistic elements which often symbolized an imperial nation. Jones shows a good balance of respect and criticism for Scott, and situates Scott within the context of his times. His book shows tensions of scientific contributions of polar exploration over against the macho, imperial, jingoistic elements which often symbolized an imperial nation. He is particularly good on the English worship of manliness and pluck, showing how Scott’s reputation gained from the notion that he and his men were somehow superhuman heroes, though suggesting that we know little of how “heroically” Scott and his partners acted.

Bering’s Voyages An Account of the Efforts of the Russians to Determine the Relation of Asia and America.

Golder, Frank Aldred. Two Volumes. New York: Octogon Books, 1968. [First Published in 1922. American Geographical Society Research Series No. I.].
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

Covers the Log Books and Official Reports of the First and Second Expeditions 1725-1730 and 1733-1742. The reading reported in these volumes is mainly about the voyages themselves, not the kind of recreational reading we find elsewhere.

Come North with Me: An Autobiography.

Balchen, Bernt. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

Although as a child Balchen read a great deal about Polar adventures, his adult autobiography shows little sign that reading played any role in his professional life as a career aviator. The book is included here as one of the best written and least narcissistic of personal accounts. There is no indication that this is a translation from his native Norwegian, nor whether he used a ghost writer in preparing the book. His WWII adventures in northern Norway are particularly compelling.

The Great North Pole Fraud.

Lewin, Walter Henry. London: C. W. Daniel Co, 1935.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1908-09 US North Pole Expeditions under Robert E. Peary (aboard Roosevelt).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An extended case against Peary based on suspicions of fraudulent Peary timings of his polar dash, on previous fabrications, on his probable incitement to the murder of Ross Marvin by the Inuit, all delivered in the guise of pure innocence in search of truth. Fascinating book if overwhelmingly ex parte. Never mentions Cook at all, although a few references imply his name. Crucial to the case is logbooks and observations, or often the lack of them.

The Voyage of the Challenger.

Linklater, Eric. New York: Doubleday, 1972.
  • 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Speaks here and there of the boredom of a scientific voyage that dredged ocean bottoms thousands of times through the ocean world. Dredging was known as “drudging” and even some desertions were attributed to boredom.

With the ‘Aurora’ in the Antarctic 1911-1914.

Davis, John King. Introduction by Beau Riffenburgh. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 2007.
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

First published in 1919. One of three books based on Davis’s journals, this one of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition is primarily about navigation and seamanship, and very little about other human activities or amusements for diversion. The concluding paragraphs of his “L’Avenir” have the most human touch:

Peace River. A Canoe Voyage from Hudson’s Bay to the Pacific.

Simpson, George, Sir. By the Late George Simpson, [Governor, Hon. Hudson’s Bay Company] in 1828. Ottawa: Durie & Son, 1872.
  • 1828 HBC Voyage of George Simpson from Hudson’s Bay to the Pacific.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. iv, Preface, dated May, 1872, and signed M.M.: The Widow and legal representatives of my lamented friend the late Chief Factor A. McDonald have, with a public spirit which commends itself, allowed me the use of his “Notes,” as he calls them—They are now given as called for—That they are so crudely given is my fault; and I have but to trust to the generosity of those who may honor the little work with a reading, pleading as my excuse…that it has only been at snatched moments from engrossing business duties, and at odd hours in the night, that I have been able thus, with running pen, to throw off these hurried pages, to meet what seemed a pressing call and inquiry.

1929-47 Libraries at Little America, 1929-30, 1934-35, 1935, 1940-41, 1946-47 (commanded by Admiral Richard Byrd)

  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

There are several mysteries about the libraries and books at the successive bases begun and used by Richard Byrd: who was responsible for selecting the books, were they all donated or were some purchased, and were they disassembled at the end of each mission or were they allowed to float away along with the bases themselves. There is little doubt that the leadership of Little America saw their book collections as vital components of the psychological health of the personnel. [See David H. Stam, “Byrd’s Books: The Libraries of Little America I-III. ” Coriolis: Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime History vol. 6 no. 1, and his Adventures in Polar Reading: The Book Cultures of High Latitudes. New York: The Grolier Club, 2019. pp. 263

Life on an Icefloe.

Papanin, Ivan Dmitrievich. Translated from the Russian by Fanny Smitham. London: Hutchinson, 1947?.
  • 1938 Russian.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

A Soviet paean to Stalin and the system, claiming Stalin’s great interest in Arctic science. There is a heavy dose of communist Stalinism written by a rather pedestrian author but still there is some interest simply in seeing what they were reading.

The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

p. 502, on Martin Frobisher’s first voyage: More impressive than the ships was the equipment…. The literature included two works by André Thever: his Cosmographie universelle, just out, and Singularitez de la France antarctique; and Medina’s Arte de Naviguar, one of the best available treatises on navigation. Strangely enough, Frobisher did not carry William Bourne’s more recent Regiment of the Sea (1574). Probably more for amusement than anything else, he had a copy of Sir John Mandeville’s famous book of whoppers. Also, for good measure, a ‘great’ English Bible. This was probably the ‘Bishop’s Bible’ of 1572, whose title page includes a portrait of the Queen, useful to show the natives…. [Can’t tell the source of Morison’s list but he does suggest there was a complete list somewhere—see Stefansson ed. of Best, v. 2, p. 77-78]