To the Ends of the Earth.

Pease, Francis K. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1935.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Begins with 1925 cruise to Antarctica aboard Discovery, Scott’s old ship, commanded by Stenhouse. First it brought gifts to Tristan da Cunha, including many writing implements, essentially useless to that population, and “a large quantity of Bibles, in which, however, the Tristans displayed very little interest, for the reason…that during the course of the years so many Bibles had been sent to the island that there was now an average of seven copies per inhabitant” (p. 20).

Tragedy and Triumph: the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott’s Last Polar Expedition.

Scott, Robert Falcon. New York: Konecky & Konecky [n.d.].
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

These journals include rather little on reading. The expedition’s lecture series implies a good library available to the lecturers, all 13 of them. Subjects included mostly scientific matter: parasitology, scurvy, polar clothing, sledging diets, motor sledges, geology, volcanoes, surveying, Lololand, biology, horse management, Burma, China, India, Japan; Scott himself lectured on the icebarrier and inland ice, and on plays for the Southern Journey. Other topics were coronas, hales, rainbows and auroras, general meteorology, the Beardmore glacier, physiography, flying birds, penguins, ice problems, radium, and the constitution of matter. [see index p. 511-12]

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
 Preview 

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.

Voyages of a Modern Viking

Hanssen, Helmer. Foreword by Vice-Admiral E.R.G.R. Evans.London: George Routledge, 1936.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A very pleasant autobiography of someone who sailed with Amundsen on the Gjoa, the Fram, and the Maud, based on his diaries and presumably translated from Norwegian (though there is no indication).

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
 Preview 

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.

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
 Preview 

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.

Nantucket Whalemen in the Deep-sea Fishery: the Changing Anatomy of an Early American Labor Force,

Vickers, Daniel. Journal of American History 72 (Sept. 1985) 277-296.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

On the whaling journey of the brig Polley to West Africa in 1774, and in particular one of its crew, Samuel Atkins, who wrote some poetry about the journey: Steadily the nerves of unlucky whalemen were worn down by loneliness, boredom, and the knowledge that the vessel would have to remain at sea until a reasonable haul of oil had been taken in (p. 278).

The Third Reich in Antarctica: The German Antarctic Expedition 1938-39.

Lüdecke, Cornelia and Colin Summerhayes. Bluntisham, Hunts. UK. Bluntisham Books, 2012.
  • 1938-39 German Antarctic Expedition (aboard Schwabenland).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Ignoring the potential onset of war, this German exploration involved study of whaling possibilities, the study of the usual scientific subjects, the search for raw materials and strategic military advantages, and land claims over what Norwegians had already claimed as Dronning Maud Land. It was a short trip during the Antarctic summer, and plans for subsequent expeditions were abandoned when WWII began. Its ship was the Schwabenland with Alfred Ritscher as leader of the expedition and Alfred Kottas as Captain of the ship. The book examines the accomplishments of the trip and debunks the various myths that had grown around this German initiative (secret bases, submarines, and UFOs) and dismisses them as fantasy.

Voyage to the End of the World, with Tales from the Great Ice Barrier.

Burke, David. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2005.
  • 2001 Russian Tourist Expedition (Kapitan Khlebnikov).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This modest book is quite a beautiful evocation of the southern continent, contrasting the author’s own tourist voyage aboard the Kapitan Khlebnikov in January 2001 with a select history of other voyages, adventures, and explorers. Well chosen and nicely illustrated. Little on reading but does tell brief story of a lone watchman at Framheim in 1911 who feared an attack by some Englishmen. After loading his rifle, he dug out an English grammar and looked up “and how are you this morning?” so he’d be prepared for the assault.

To the Pacific and Arctic with Beechey: The Journal of Lieutenant George Peard of H.M.S. ‘Blossom’

Peard, George. Edited by Barry M. Gough. (Cambridge, UK: Hakluyt Society, 1973).
  • 1825-28 British Voyage to Pacific Northwest to Meet Captain Franklin at the Bering Straits.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

George Peard, the first lieutenant of the Blossom, gives detailed descriptions of the places visited and the inhabitants, among them Pitcairn Island and the Gambier, Tahitian and Hawaiian groups. No less valuable are his accounts of Kamchatka, California, the Northwestern extremity of North America, and various parts of South America. Peard had an inquisitive, scientific mind, and he wrote a clear discursive narrative which shows that British exploration in the early Pax Britannica bore many fruits - scientific, commercial and strategic. It also showed that the Northwest passage had again eluded the British, in spite of the careful planning of the Admiralty, the Colonial office and the Hudson's Bay Company and the painstaking execution of orders by such naval officers as Parry, Franklin, Beechey and Peard himself. Two of the plates are now printed at the end of the book. [Description from Google Books, 10/7/17.]

The Flag Ship: Or A Voyage Around the World, in the United States Frigate Columbia; Attended by Her Consort The Sloop of War John Adams, and Bearing the Broad Pennant of Commodore George C. Read.

Taylor, Fitch Waterman. By Fitch Waterman Taylor, Chaplain to the Squadron. [Two Volumes] New.York: D. Appleton & Co., 1840.
  • 1838-39 American Circumnavigation (aboard Columbia commanded by George Campbell Read).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 154-55: Previous to our leaving the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, I preached in the English chapel. The congregation was very respectable. The English chaplain who has charge of the congregation, and the chaplain of the Stag [a Brazilian naval ship], were present—the former reading the service.

A Voyage Towards the South Pole, Performed in the Years 1822-24 Containing an Examination of the Antarctic Sea (1827).

Weddell, James. A reprint with a new Introduction by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Second edition. London: David & Charles Reprints, 1970.
  • 1822-24 Weddell Whaling Expeditions.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

It’s obvious that Weddell was well-read on the history of the region he explored (cf. his translation and abstracts of earlier Spanish reports, on p. 61-9), but this isn’t evidence of books aboard—he does speak of the credibility of some books inducing him to search certain islands, implying that copies were on the ship. And the obligatory prayer-books on British ships were certainly present.

Discovery: The Story of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition.

Byrd, Richard Evelyn. New York: Putnam’s, 1935.
  • 1933-35 Byrd Second Antarctic Expedition.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Byrd’ second expedition (1933-1935), again settled at the still usable Little America, emphasizing science and technology at considerable expense for a wholly private expedition. The technology included four airplanes, various tractors, and snowmobiles. The trip included Byrd’s near-fatal solitary period at Bolling Advanced Weather Base recounted in Alone.