John Irving (1815 1847?) was a lieutenant on board H.M.S. Terror during Sir John Franklin's fateful expedition, and had the melancholy distinction of being the first identifiable body to be found by a subsequent search party - that of the US officer Frederick Schwatka - in 1878. Irving was identified by a silver medal, won for mathematics in 1830. His remains were brought back to Britain and reburied in his home town, Edinburgh, and at the request of Irving's father this 'memorial sketch', including some of the young lieutenant's letters to his family, was published in 1881 by Benjamin Bell...

Alexander Fisher (d.1838), ship's surgeon on the Arctic exploration ship H.M.S. Hecla, was the probable author of the anonymous 1819 Journal of a Voyage of Discovery to the Arctic Regions, also reissued in this series. The voyage of the Hecla and Griper began in 1819, and Fisher's account was published in 1821, going rapidly into further editions (of which this reissue is the third). The intention of the expedition, under William Edward Parry, was to find the North-West Passage. It was unsuccessful in this respect (an account by Captain G. F. Lyon of Parry's expedition of 1821 3 is also...

The historian William Coxe (1748-1828) was also an Anglican priest, and had travelled widely in Europe as tutor to various young noblemen on the Grand Tour. (His Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel, and John Christopher Smith is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.) This work originated on a visit to St Petersburg, where Coxe had obtained sight of journals by Russian explorers, and also found an anonymous German work on Russian Arctic voyages between 1745 and 1770. Having checked its authenticity with the Russian authorities, he translated it to form part of this book, first...

This 1858 work, reissued here with its 1860 sequel, sought to promote Arctic knowledge and the efforts to find Franklin.

This illustrated 1854 work describes the zoological specimens collected off the coast of North America and in Arctic seas.

A Benedictine scholar and naturalist, Antoine-Joseph Pernety (1716-96) produced this early and invaluable description of the natural history of the Falkland Islands (or isles Malouines). He had arrived there as part of the 1763-4 expedition led by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, claiming the islands for France. A small colony was established, allowing Pernety to provide an account of an ecosystem as yet unaffected by a human population. He spent some months studying the landscape, flora, fauna and climate, and his observations and drawings were published in these two volumes in 1770 (a...

A Benedictine scholar and naturalist, Antoine-Joseph Pernety (1716-96) produced this early and invaluable description of the natural history of the Falkland Islands (or isles Malouines). He had arrived there as part of the 1763-4 expedition led by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, claiming the islands for France. A small colony was established, allowing Pernety to provide an account of an ecosystem as yet unaffected by a human population. He spent some months studying the landscape, flora, fauna and climate, and his observations and drawings were published in these two volumes in 1770 (a...

Compiled by the naval chaplain Richard Walter (1717 85), though the extent of his editorial contribution is not certain, this 1748 publication documents the extraordinary circumnavigation accomplished by the British naval officer George Anson (1697 1762) between 1740 and 1744. During the Anglo-Spanish conflict which Thomas Carlyle later described as the War of Jenkins' Ear, Anson was chosen to command a squadron to raid and plunder the Pacific coast of South America. After a delayed departure, the expedition struggled with terrible weather, rough seas and outbreaks of scurvy as it rounded...

This short work contains texts and maps relating to early exploration and trade routes. Included here are descriptions of Russia and Siberia by Isaac Massa (1586-1643), a Dutch merchant and diplomat; one of the memorials relating to Pacific discoveries by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queiros (c.1565-1615); and maps by the cartographer Hessel Gerritsz (c.1581-1632) showing the discoveries of the English navigator Henry Hudson (d.1611). Gerritsz originally compiled these materials and published them in Dutch, and they were soon translated into Latin to increase their readership....

This 1911 publication, translated from the French, vividly describes the varied hardships and satisfactions of Antarctic exploration and scientific research in the early twentieth century. Son of the famed neurologist, Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936) commanded the Pourquoi-Pas? on its hazardous journey into the ice-bound regions south of Cape Horn. Illustrated with numerous photographs, his journal entries provide a rich account of daily life aboard the ship and out on the ice, including encounters with seals and penguins, and Christmases gathered around a cardboard tree. Building on the...