A Frenchman in Search of Franklin: De Bray’s Arctic Journal, 1852-1854.

De Bray, Emile Frederic. Trans. and ed. by William Barr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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De Bray was influenced by Joseph-René Bellot’s service on an English expedition as a volunteer for the Franklin Search with Sir Edward Belcher aboard HMS Resolute. He served in the Arctic from 1852 to 1854, commanded a number of sledge expeditions, and left the Resolute shortly before it was abandoned. He was a friend of Jules Verne who used De Bray’s Arctic knowledge in a novel based on the Franklin Search.

Annual Report of the Chief Signal-Officer [Albert J. Myer] to the Secretary of War for the Year 1872.

United States. War Department. Signal Corps. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 87: The library of the Office has been increased from six hundred volumes to one thousand three hundred and forty. These books have been catalogued and arranged conveniently for reference, and form the nucleus of a valuable meteorological library, to which additions may be made from time to time.

Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal: Or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition, in the Years 1850-1851.

Osborn, Sherard. (New York: Putnam’s, 1852). Putnam’s Semi-Monthly Library. [There was another 1852 edition published in London by Longman Brown with different pagination (320 p.) and some variants.].
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 21, re Brit. chauvinism: The whaler from bonnie Scotia, or busy Hull, fresh from the recollection of his laird and home, no doubt shudders at the comparative misery and barbarity of these poor people; but those who have seen the degraded Bushmen of South Africa, the miserable Patanies of Malayia, the Fuegians of our southern hemisphere, and remember the comparative blessings afforded by climate to those melancholy specimens of the human family, will, I think, exclaim with me, that the Esquimaux of Greenland are as superior to them in mental capacity, manual dexterity, physical enterprise, and social virtues, as the Englishman is to the Esquimaux.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself.

Equiano, Olaudah. [Gustavus Vassa]. Fourth edition. (Dublin: Printed for, and Sold by, the Author. 1791). [First published 1789; also New York: Praeger, 1967.].
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 69: I had often seen my master and Dick employed in reading; and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did; and so to learn how all things had a beginning: for that purpose I have often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me; and I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent.

And the Whale is Ours: Creative Writing of American Whalemen.

Miller, Pamela A. Boston: David R. Godine: Kendall Whaling Museum 1979.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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A book of extensive excerpts of whalemen’s own escape literature, their own personal journals, often sentimental claptrap about home, love, and death, but best when devoted to their trade of whaling which they tended to depict accurately and realistically.

Watkins’ Last Expedition.

Chapman, Frederick Spencer. With an Introduction by Augustine Courtauld. London: Chatto and Windus, 1934.
  • 1932-33 British East Greenland Expedition (Gino Watkins aboard Quest).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. xii, Introduction: Time may pass, but the memory will never fade of that little tent we shared, the thoughts we shared, the fears we shared; how, during those dark fierce days of blizzard, when travel was impossible, he [Chapman] used to read in a clear tenor from one of our few small books, while the tent shook to the bass of the storm’s accompaniment.

The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N.

Traill, Henry Duff. London: John Murray, 1896.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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p. 57-58: Traill cites Beechey’s Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole of the Dorothea and Trent in which Franklin sailed: It is a most spirited narrative of a voyage the interest of which as a series of maritime adventures considerable exceeded its scientific results…. But considered as a record of manifold dangers and difficulties encountered with unflinching courage and overcome by brilliant seamanship, the story of their voyage must always hold a high place in the history of Arctic adventure.

The Arctic Navy List, or, A Century of Arctic & Antarctic Officers, 1773-1873: Together with a List of Officers of the 1875 Expedition, and Their Services.

Markham, Clements R. (London: Griffin, 1875).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Preface describes 3 generations of explorers from 1773 to 1873: 1) Cook and Phipps; 2) Ross, Parry, Franklin, Back; 3) Franklin searches. 4th would begin with the Nares expedition of 1875. The book is a biographical list showing voyage, ship, role in winter activities of all officers (e.g. Henry Kellett on Resolute where he was on the Committee of Management of the “Royal Arctic Theatre” 1852-54, before Belcher ordered abandonment of Resolute). Useful reference—there is a 1992 facsimile.

An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia…. Performed By command of Her Imperial Majesty Catherine the Second, Empress of All the Russias, by Commodore Joseph Billings, In the Years 1785,&c. to 1794.

Sauer, Martin. London: T. Cadell, 1802.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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p. 1: …the Admiralty confirmed the officers chosen by the commander, and supplied astronomical and nautical instruments, the charts and journals of all former navigators from the year 1724, and every other article considered as necessary.

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration.

Roberts, David. New York: Norton, 2013.
  • 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Mawson).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A straightforward rehash of the Mawson story, at somewhat greater length than others, but competently done. He doesn’t neglect the books and reading which is fairly well documented for this expedition. He makes the mistake of taking Huntford as gospel truth, assuming for example Kathleen Scott’s affair with Nansen. He also disparages Bickel’s Mawson’s Will, though that book is a much more dramatic telling of Mawson’s story.