Of Whales and Men.

Robertson, R. B. (New York: Knopf, 1954).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

A delightful account of a ship’s doctor on an 8-month cruise of a whaling factory ship, with something of a psychological emphasis on the men he was with.

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen

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

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 to use that information to give himself an extra edge. For that Amundsen probably gets insufficient credit.

The Seaman’s Library Manual.

Howe, Herbert L. Prepared by Herbert L. Howe, Librarian. (New York: American Merchant Marine Library Association, 1939). unpaged.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Intro. By Christopher Morley: I have seen the Green Box [American Seamen’s Friend Society library boxes] in use aboard American ships at sea, and I know what it means…to the reader off duty.

Libris Polaris.

Jones, Bassett. Columbia University Library Collection. Notes.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Collection of Bassett Jones at Columbia University Library. [MS CollLibris Polaris]. Bassett Jones was a collector and member of both Explorers and Grolier Clubs. He and Stefansson did a major exhibit of polar exploration literature in English at the Grolier Club in January 1932. In that year Jones was also Acting President of the Eplorers Club. He then lived at 1088 Park Avenue. Bartlett in the National Geographic says: “ We stopped for a couple of days at Nantucket, and there, through the generosity of Bassett Jones, electrical engineer in charge of the lighting at the New York World’s Fair, we acquired an otter trawl, which later enabled us to bring back a wealth of specimens from the floor of the ocean.”

Antarctic Scout

Chappell, Richard Lee. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1959.
  • 1957- Operation Deep Freeze.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Chappell was part of a program to send Boy Scouts on Antarctic expeditions, in his case to Operation Deep Freeze II when he was a winterover at Little America. Paul Siple was an earlier participant who became an important American explorer and encouraged this young man who later went to Princeton. The writing is wooden and generally sanctimonious, betraying the author’s youth. Reading is minimal, mostly confined to the Bible (p. 81), though he does find a copy of Murphy’s Oceanic Birds of South America to help his pursuit of ornithology, and he did participate in Little America’s “University of the Antarctic.” At those sessions he studied Morse code and did manage to send off a sample message. He ends with a rather fundamentalist homily based on Matt 28:20: “lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Chappell does not appear to have published anything else.

Eighteen Months on a Greenland Whaler

Faulkner, Joseph P. New York: Published for the Author, 1878.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Rather charming and humorous writer who was a compositor, Civil War soldier, printer, etc., and nearly blind, before shipping to Greenland in May 1865-66.

Secrets of Polar Travel.

Peary, Robert E. New York: Century, 1917.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A chapter on winter quarters describes lodges he built for wintering in Greenland.

Antarctica: The Worst Place in the World.

Baum, Allyn. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
  • 1964-65 Operation Deep Freeze.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Baum was a NYTimes reporter and photographer assigned to Operation Deep Freeze for later expeditions. The book is really quite a crude one with a large number of historical inaccuracies, but it has some appeal to romantisizers of the worst place in the world.

Saga of the “Discovery.

Bernacchi, Louis Charles. London: Blackie, 1938.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Bernacchi was an Australian/Belgian explorer, another veteran of the heroic age of polar exploration, having participated in Borchgrevink’s Southern Cross expedition, Scott’s Discovery expedition, as well as journeys to Africa and Peru. He was also the biographer of Lawrence Oates, who died on Scott’s last expedition.

David Thompson’s Narrative 1784-1812.

Thompson, David. A New Edition with Added Material Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Richard Glover. (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1962). [This is Volume XL. Volume XII of The Publications of the Champlain Society, Edited by J. B. Tyrrell, was published by the Society in 1916.].
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

The second edition of 1962 has a new Introduction, followed by Tyrrell’s original “David Thompson’s Itinerary in North-Western Americana, 1785-1812.” From the outset of this new Introduction, Glover is critical of the critics of the HBC, for example Hearne, Thompson, and Umfreville, as well as of the hagiographers of those traders and authors, e.g. even Tryrell could sink to writing that Thompson bore continuously “the white flower of the blameless life”, and lesser men wrote still worse stuff” (p. xii). Grover is a stylish and provocative writer, and few escape his ascerbic pen.

Ice Ship: The Epic Voyages of the Polar Adventurer Fram.

Johnson, Charles W. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2014.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

This is a workmanlike biography of a ship, Fridthof Nansen's Fram, and its major voyages: Nansen's attempt to drift to the North Pole in 1893-96; Otto Sverdrup's journey to Ellesmere Land and Alex Heiberg Island, 1898-1902; and Amundsen's Expedition to the South Pole in 1911-12. It is a good retelling of the major adventures of these three motivated if depressing explorers, though there is little new here and some mistakes and questionable emphases. Although the ship is well-known for its well-stocked library, and that is recognized here, there is little about what was in the library, only some general comments about books in certain fields such as botany and other sciences, and a reading from Corinthians for a burial at sea.