George Cartwright (1739 1819) was a soldier, trader and explorer who spent sixteen years travelling and working in Labrador in northern Canada. In 1754, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in London before taking up a commission in the Indian army. In 1760, he served in the Seven Years' War, returning to England with the rank of Captain. After his army career, he turned to exploration and set himself up as a trader along the Labrador coast of Canada, making six expeditions from 1770 86 between Cape St Charles and Hamilton Inlet. Published in 1792, this is the first book in a...

George Cartwright (1739 1819) was a soldier, trader and explorer who spent sixteen years travelling and working in Labrador in northern Canada. In 1754, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in London before taking up a commission in the Indian army. In 1760, he served in the Seven Years' War, returning to England with the rank of Captain. After his army career, he turned to exploration and set himself up as a trader along the Labrador coast of Canada, making six expeditions from 1770 86 between Cape St Charles and Hamilton Inlet. Published in 1792, this is the second book in a...

George Cartwright (1739 1819) was a soldier, trader and explorer who spent sixteen years travelling and working in Labrador in northern Canada. In 1754, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in London before taking up a commission in the Indian army. In 1760, he served in the Seven Years' War, returning to England with the rank of Captain. After his army career, he turned to exploration and set himself up as a trader along the Labrador coast of Canada, making six expeditions from 1770 86 between Cape St Charles and Hamilton Inlet. Published in 1792, this is the last book of a...

In 1897, the triumphant return of the Jackson Harmsworth Arctic Expedition revived widespread enthusiasm for Polar exploration. Within days of the expedition's arrival in London, newspapers ranging from the Boy's Own Paper to the Graphic were full of articles relating to the endeavours and findings of this intrepid undertaking. The demand for information did not abate and, in 1899, this two-volume account by Frederick G. Jackson (1860 1938) of his travels in Franz Josef Land was published to wide acclaim. Hailed by The Morning Post as 'a record of solid achievement accomplished by dint of...

In 1897, the triumphant return of the Jackson Harmsworth Arctic expedition revived widespread enthusiasm for Polar exploration. Within days of the expedition's arrival in London, newspapers ranging from the Boy's Own Paper to the Graphic were full of articles relating to the endeavours and findings of this intrepid undertaking. The demand for information did not abate and, in 1899, this two-volume account by Frederick G. Jackson (1860 1938) of his travels in Franz Josef Land was published to wide acclaim. Hailed by The Morning Post as 'a record of solid achievement accomplished by dint of...

Robert Peary (1856 1920) was an American Arctic explorer. For much of the twentieth century, he was for many years credited with being, in 1909, the first man to reach the North Pole, although this has recently been questioned. Born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, Peary graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877 and joined the US Navy in 1881. He began his Arctic expeditions in 1886, exploring Greenland for a number of years in search of a route to the Pole. Published in 1893, this illustrated book consists of two parts. Drawing on the diaries of the expedition's surgeon, Robert Keely, Part I describes...

George W. Melville (1841 1912) was a member of an 1879 American Arctic expedition seeking a northern passage from the Bering Strait to the Atlantic. Its ship was trapped in ice for nearly two years, and was eventually crushed and sank. The crew, stranded in three small boats, were left with few provisions and little hope of rescue. Melville was the only boat commander to bring his men to safety, assuming leadership of the survivors after landing in Siberia in 1881. He returned to search for other survivors, trekking over a thousand miles, but found only the bodies of his former companions in...

Published posthumously in 1889, this journal records the 1850 5 expedition undertaken by naval officer and navigator Sir Richard Collinson (1811 83) to attempt to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition by entering the hypothetical North-West Passage from the 'other side', via Bering Strait. Franklin, the famous Polar explorer, disappeared on an expedition to discover the Passage in 1845, and no fewer than thirty attempts were made between 1847 and 1859 to investigate what had happened to his 129-strong party. Collinson set out in command of HMS Enterprise in 1850, and his ship,...

This two-volume English translation of part of a longer travel narrative by the Ottoman aristocrat Evliya Celebi (1611 c.1680) was translated by the Austrian scholar Joseph von Hammer (1774 1856) and published in 1834 by the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, set up to make 'Eastern' texts more widely available in English. Celebi was highly educated, had served the Ottoman court both as a diplomat and as a soldier, and as he says, had in his travels 'seen the countries of eighteen monarchs and heard 147 different languages'. His lifetime encompassed the highest point of...

This two-volume English translation of part of a longer travel narrative by the Ottoman aristocrat Evilya Celebi (1611 c.1680) was translated by the Austrian scholar Joseph von Hammer (1774 1856) and published in 1834 by the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, set up to make 'Eastern' texts more widely available in English. Celebi was highly educated, had served the Ottoman court both as a diplomat and as a soldier, and as he says, had in his travels 'seen the countries of eighteen monarchs and heard 147 different languages'. His lifetime encompassed the highest point of...