Round the Horn before the Mast

Lubbock, Alfred Basil. New York: E. P. Dutton. 1907.
  • 1899- American Schooner Voyage from San Francisco to Europe and Round the Horn aboard Royalshire.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 17, after a day of shoveling coal he and his new English friend cleaned up and went to the opera to see “Carmen.”

Narrative of a Voyage to the Ethiopic and South Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Chinese Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean, in the Yeas 1829, 1830, 1831.

Morrell, Abby Jane. New-York: Published by J. & J. Harper, 1833.
  • 1822-31 Four US Voyages to South and North Pacific Seas and Antarctica (Capt. Benjamin Morrell aboard Various Ships).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Mrs. Morrell followed her husband’s larger and multi-voyage 1832 narrative by only one year, and was considerably more successful with her account of the last of her husband’s voyages. No doubt its greater appeal lay in the unusual phenomenon of a woman’s account of such a voyage. The pair deserve a dual biography.

Marooned: Being a Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Captain Charles H. Barnard, Embracing an Account of the Seizure of his Vessel at the Falkland Islands, &c., 1812-1816.

Barnard, Charles H., Captain. Edited with an introduction by Bertha S. Dodge. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986 [first published 1979].
  • Whalemen's Reading
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No doubt a most harrowing tale, marred only by the seeming innocence and trusting self-presentation of Barnard and his providential beliefs. The work includes excerpts from the log of Barzillai Pease (originals in Syracuse University Library), a co-partner in Barnard’s endeavor. Barnard’s ship, Nanina, was taken over by mutineers, he himself was abandoned by other shipmates, rescued by the Isabella which in turn was shipwrecked, abandoned again, and other perils, his ship eventually declared war bounty by the British during war of 1812.

Greenland Journey: The Story of Wegener’s German Expedition to Greenland in 1930-31 as Told by Members of the Expedition and the Leader’s Diary.

Wegener, Alfred. Edited by Else Wegener, with the Assistance of Dr. Fritz Loewe. London: Blackie & son, 1939.
  • 1930-31 German Expedition to Greenland (Alfred Wegener).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 140, Karl Weiken on the relief journey: During the excessive exertions and nerve-racking hustle of the summer we had often looked forward to the long restful winter night. First we would rest awhile and collect ourselves, and then we would be able to enjoy a good book again.

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.

Soviets in the Arctic: An Historical, Economic and Political Study of the Soviet Advance into the Arctic

Taracouzio, T. A. . New York: Macmillan Co., 1938.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
 Preview 

Chapter III (p. 73ff) spells out quite explicitly the purpose of this book: The Russian government must be completely Sovietized…. Politically, within the territory geographically located within the boundaries of the U.S.S.R., no tolerance can be shown toward any other form of government than that which was established by Lenin in 1917. The portion of the Arctic to be studied here is part of the Soviet Union.

The Journal of Rochfort Maguire, 1852-1854: Two Years at Point Barrow, Alaska, aboard HMS Plover in the Search for Sir John Franklin.

Maguire, Rochfort. Edited by John Bockstoce. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1988).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

During the Franklin Search it appeared that Franklin’s ships might well have made it through the Northwest Passage and might be met at the western end of the Passage at Point Barrow or the Baring Strait. The Plover was given the ultimate but fruitless duty of looking for that possibility.

The Voyages of the ‘Morning’

Doorly, James G. S. Bluntisham, UK: Bluntisham Books, 1995. [First published London: Smith, Elder, 1916].
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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The Morning was a relief ship for Scott’s Discovery expedition. Notable for its piano, given by Clements Markham (the carpenter cut it in half to get it into the wardroom), for the song texts given in the book, apparently composed by Doorly, and the key role of the piano. Doorly was a close friend of Teddy Evans and it was Evans’s influence on Clements Markham that helped get him posted to the Morning and involved in freeing Discovery from the heavy ice of McMurdo sound. Doorly wrote a readable autobiography called In the Wake, which devotes a couple of chapters to his Discovery experience.

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America.

Dolan, John Davis. New York: Norton, 2007.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

An epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme," Herman Melville proclaimed, and this absorbing history demonstrates that few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. Eric Jay Dolin begins his vivid narrative with Captain John Smith's botched whaling expedition to the New World in 1614. He then chronicles the rise of a burgeoning industry - from its brutal struggles during the Revolutionary period to its golden age in the mid-1800s when a fleet of more than 700 ships hunted the seas and American whale oil lit the world, to its decline as the twentieth century dawned. This sweeping social and economic history provides rich and often fantastic accounts of the men themselves, who mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, scrimshawed, and recorded their experiences in journals and memoirs. Containing a wealth of naturalistic detail on whales, Leviathan is the most original and stirring history of American whaling in many decades.

A Gipsy of the Horn.

Clements, Rex. London: Hart-Davis, 1951.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Although not a polar book as such there is this passage on reading during a voyage around the world:

An Arctic Whaling Diary: The Journal of Captain George Comer in Hudson Bay, 1903-1905.

Comer, George. Edited by W. Gillies Ross. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1984.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

A straightforward and not too revealing journal of Hudson Bay whaling at the beginning of the 20th century, just as Amundsen was coming through on his NW Passage. Comer was commanding the American whaler Era at the end of the whaling era. Has a few interesting book notes: