Moby Dick, or The Whale.

Melville, Herman. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. New York: Modern Library, 1930.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Among so many other things, Moby Dick is a key text on the reading of sailors, especially the quote on p. 159, and this edition with Kent’s wood engravings is especially desirable.

Biographical Notes.Feb. 6-1877 to Jan. 24, 1960.

Jones, Bassett. Garnered from his archives at AMNH, the Grolier Club, Columbia University Library, and the Explorers Club. The following notes are by David H. Stam, based on his Grolier Club lecture on Jones in 2007.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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Bassett Jones was a consulting engineer who graduated from MIT in 1898, who formed a consulting partnership specializing in elevator and lighting design and installation. He was also a major collector of materials dealing with the polar regions and he and Vilhjalmur Stefansson prepared a major exhibition of their collections at the Grolier Club in 1931-32. He joined the Explorers Club in 1926 when it was on 47 W 76th St. At the time of the exhibition he was living at 1088 Park Avenue and was acting President of the Explorers Club. Not all of his Explorers Club activities were entirely congenial: in April 1933 the NYTimes reported that he was being sued for $50,000 by a former librarian of the Club for asserting that the librarian had sold copies of the Club publication, As Told at the Explorers Club (New York, 1931),for his personal profit. The Times makes no further reference to this slander suit.

The Voyage of the Beagle

Darwin, Charles. Introduction by Catherine A. Henze. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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p. xv-xvi, Introduction: During this eventual circumnavigation of the globe, most of the time was spent first on the east, and secondarily on the west coasts of South America. With Darwin signed on as the captain’s companion, the vessel’s senior surgeon, Robert McCormick, was its naturalist. However, after only four months at sea, McCormick returned to England, because it was obvious that Darwin, nicked named “Philos,” short for “Ship’s Philosopher,” was FitzRoy’s preferred naturalist. Darwin brought with him the works of Shakespeare and Milton (taking Paradise Lost with him on his land excursions), and, more importantly, numerous scientific texts, including Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology. (As subsequent volumes were published, Darwin had them sent from England). The tiny cabin FitzRoy and Darwin shared contained a library of some 245 volumes. Even though Darwin missed England, he was not cut off from it; newspapers and journals arrived regularly, and as much as possible, letters from home.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

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

A Two Years’ Cruise off Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, Patagonia, and the River Plate: A Narrative of Life in the Southern Seas.

Snow, William Parker. Two Volumes. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857.
  • 1854-56 British Patagonian Mission Society Expedition to Southern Atlantic (Captain William Park Snow aboard Allen Gardiner).
  • Maritime Reading
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A fraught voyage with conflicting commands for sea matters and spiritual matters, to which Captain Snow took umbrage.

Letterbooks.

Bryant, Henry. APS Mss. Collection 38, Vol. 1.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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January 15, 1903, Bryant to Commander Robert Peary, stating his skepticism toward the Smith Sound route to the North Pole: The chances of failure are too great to warrant further endeavor on the old lines. Suggests repeating the Fram experiment of forcing a ship north of Spitzbergen or better routes. Pledges $2000 to the Peary Arctic Club for this alternate proposal.

Ice Pilot: Bob Bartlett.

Sarnoff, Paul. New York: Julian Messner, 1966.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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A juvenile audience intended here, but a good overview and a few things wrong.

On Greenland’s Closed Shore.

Hutchison, Isobel Wylie. Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1930.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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On this trip Hutchison took a fair number of books with her and she generously shared them with her hosts.

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
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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.

Two Years before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea.

Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1840.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Depicts the life of the forecastle seaman on a merchant vessel in 1840. Published anonymously, Dana was an educated gentleman who presented himself as a common seaman intending to “present the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is,—the light and dark together.” (p. 4)

Frank Wild

Mills, Leif. . Whitby, Yorkshire: Caedmon, 1999.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Frank Wild served widely in Antarctica on various expeditions including the first Scott voyage of Discovery, with Mawson’s 1912-13 expedition, Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic attempt with Endurance, and finally taking over Shackleton’s Quest expedition when Shackleton died. His finest achievement was leading the 22 unhappy explorers marooned on Elephant Island in 1916, for the 105 days while Shackleton was struggling to South Georgia. Mills’ book is a sound if somewhat solemn biography of a remarkable leader.

Archives.

Hudson’s Bay Company.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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The archives, now in Winnipeg, has a mss. catalogue of the HBC library, ca1800s and later, described as a memorandum book with index at front and tabs used to list the books; lists of books borrowed by borrower (mostly committee members but includes Beechey, Franklin, and Richardson, and dates of loan. (The following list courtesy of Ann Morton, HBC)

The Founding of Churchill; Being the Journal of Captain James Knight, Governor-in-Chief in Hudson Bay, from the 14th of July to the 13th of September 1717.

Knight, James, Capt. Edited…by James F. Kenney. Toronto, London: J. M. Dent, 1932.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Interest of this book is not so much for his journal, but the account in the text by Kenney of the fate of Captain Knight. After he left the HBC governorship, he organized an expedition to the west coast of Hudson Bay in search of copper and gold (cf. Frobisher and Borchgrevink), as well as for the NW Passage. Evidently his ships were damaged on the western shore of Marble Island where after two winters all the crew had died, facts which did not come to light for some time. Since he made this voyage without telling the local HBC about his activities, he was not likely to be found. (see esp. p. 75-89).

Antarctic Command

Ronne, Finne. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961.
  • 1957-58 Operation Deep Freeze I. Ellesworth Station. (Finn Ronne).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Ronne’s self-justifying and self-pitying account of his disastrous command of the IGY expedition at Ellsworth Station in the Weddell Sea in 1956-58, mainly acknowledging the extreme tensions between military and civilian scientists.