Survival in Antarctica.

National Science Foundation. 1974 Edition. Washington, DC: NSF Office of Polar Programs, 1974.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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On the purpose of this manual: Today people go from the United States to Antarctica in hours. Warm buildings and home comforts shield them from months-long darkness, high winds, and temperatures sometimes below -75°C. (-100°F.). At stations like McMurdo, life seems so normal that it is easy to forget Antarctica's dangers. Tragedy and disaster can strike unexpectedly. It has happened, and it will happen again. This manual will help you prepare for the possibility, when all seems to be going well, of suddenly being in a survival situation.

Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic Word, 1700-1920.

Creighton, Margaret and Lisa Norling, editors. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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A fine collection of essays by some well-known scholars on relations of women to sailors, primarily but not exclusively in the American industry. The work focuses on the role of women in shipping, far beyond their role as figureheads of the “wooden” title. Much of their work was in pants roles, transvestites wearing men’s clothing to assure their work. There is little I found about their reading as pirates, cabin boys, cooks, etc., but most of the essays are fascinating on the gender issues.

A Man-of-War Library,

Melville, Herman. in White-Jacket, or The world in a Man-of-War. (New York: Library of America, 1983) p. 522-24:.
  • Whalemen's Reading
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Chapter 41. A Man-of-War Library

Fifteen Months in the Antarctic [Voyage of the Belgica].

Gerlache de Gomery, Adrien de. Trans. by Maurice Raraty. Bluntisham, U.K., Erskine Press and Bluntisham Books, 1998 [1902].
  • 1897-99 Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gerlache de Gomery aboard Belgica).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This is a judicious, fair-minded, and good book depicting a relatively placid expedition with a tolerant and forgiving crew. Between the lines I detect far more tensions than Gerlache wishes to admit or reveal, at least in this translation.

A Tenderfoot with Peary.

Borup, George. with a Preface by G. W. Melville. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1911.
  • 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
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p. 6: …as we were leaving Hawkes’ Harbor, the Commander put the Doctor and us [Borup and Macmillan], the tenderfeet of the expedition, to work sorting the hundreds of magazines which were down in the lazarette and were filling every available space. There were fairly complete files of all the principle ones back to January, 1907 [as of June 1908], and as some one has said, ‘If the serial stories weren’t good, the cereal advertisements were,’ and so for that matter were the open-work yarns in the ladies’ journals.

Antarctica. By A. S. Helm and J. H. Miller. The Story of the New Zealand Party of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Helm, A. S. Wellington, NZ: R.E. Owen, Government Printer, 1964.
  • 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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The official account of the New Zealand part of the Fuchs/Hillary expedition, the one based at Scott Base near McMurdo which in addition to its Trans-Antarctic work sponsored some sledge journey surveys of the Darwin Glacier and other areas.

An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up from the Journals which were Kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, esq.; by John Hawkesworth … Illustrated with Cuts, and a Great Variety of Charts and Maps.

Hawkesworth, John. Three volumes.London: Strahan & Cadell, 1773.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
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Hawkesworth’s introduction (p. xix) has a brief but controversial discussion of Providence and natural events. p. xx: “it will always be found that Providence interposes too late, and only moderates the mischief which it might have prevented.” In final passage he says he honors God but doubts his intervention in natural events.

Reminiscences of a Voyage Around the World.

Davis, Raymond Cazallis. Ann Arbor, MI: Dr. Chase’s Steam Printing House, 1869.
  • 1849-51 American Circumnavigation (aboard Hampton).
  • Maritime Reading
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Written by an Assistant Librarian of the University of Michigan and son of the captain, who says he wrote it to increase an “insufficient salary.” First published in a weekly newspaper, readers he claims called for book publication. The author was early on a cabin boy, a job from which he was “ignominiously dismissed” for his greater interest in the world, than the world around him.

With Peary Near the Pole.

Astrup, Eivind. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1898.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole; 1891-97 and 1898 US Northern Greenland and North Pole Expeditions (Commanded by Robert E. Peary).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Astrup participated in two of Peary’s early Greenland expeditions, in 1891-92 and 1893-94.

Letters Written During the Late Voyage of Discovery in the Western Arctic Sea.

Parry, William Edward. By an Officer of the Expedition. London: Printed for Sir Richard Phillips, 1821.
  • 1819-20 British Voyage of Discovery to the Arctic Regions (Edward Parry aboard Hecla and Griper).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Letters from the Parry Expedition, 1819-1820, describing the voyage and the wintering at Winter Harbour, Melville Island, the Canadian Arctic waters and their ice, the Arctic night, the activities of the crews. Although anonymous, internal evidence shows the officer to have been one of the midshipmen on the Griper; either A.M. Skene or William Nelson Griffth.

Correspondence, 1908-1912. AMNH Mss. B67

Borup, George.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Folder 1: Long letter to his father from Peary expedition, an account of his experience starting Thurs, July 23 from Turnavik in 1908:

Tudor Political Consultancy.

Houston, Chloë. [Review of Thomas Elyot, The Image of Governance], TLS (July 26, 2019) p. 26-27:.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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In the opening lines of his preface to The Image of Governance (1541), Elyot tells his reader that he came across his subject while

To the Arctic: The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times to the Present.

Mirsky, Jeannette. With an Introduction by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. [First published as To the North in 1934.]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 103, on Parry’s 1819-20 expedition: A school was formed to teach the men to read and write. Captain Sabine edited a weekly, the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle, for the amusement of the officers, and they in turn amused the men. Fortnightly a farce that had had a successful run in London was given. Christmas was celebrated by a special dinner and an operetta, Northwest Passage. [A facsimile page of the gazette is on p. 102.]

“Caxtons of the North: Mid Nineteenth-century Arctic Shipboard Printing”

Hoag, Elaine. Book History 4 (2001) 81-114.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 109, footnote 39: The catalogue of the Resolute library appears in the first issue (June 1850) of the Aurora Borealis, one of the manuscript newspapers produced on that voyage. The issue is held in the Edward Newell Harrison papers, MS/75/061, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. The catalogue was not reproduced in Arctic Miscellanies, the publication that reprinted selections from the Aurora Borealis after the crew returned home to England. The catalogue of the library on Belcher’s Assistance was actually printed on board ship: A Catalogue of the Library Established on Board H.M.S.Assistance, Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B. Commanding the Arctic Squadron in Search of Sir John Franklin and His Companions: Printed and published on Board H.M.S.Assistance, Wellington Channel, Arctic Regions, H. Briantt, Printer, 1853. (1853). A copy of this catalogue is held in the Royal Geographical Society Library bound with other pamphlets concerning the Arctic donated by John Barrow Jr. and given the binder’s title: Arctic Pamphlets, 1852-54.