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5 CD Books on Arctic Exploration

Voyages of Discovery

The end of Napoleonic wars in Europe left the Royal Navy with a surplus of ships and officers, eager for peacetime employment. With great foresight, these resources were employed on a number of discovery expeditions to remote and unmapped regions of the Earth. Of particular interest were the Arctic and the search for the Northwest Passage.

Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)

Officer of the Royal Navy, Arctic Explorer and Governor of Tasmania. Commanded two overland expeditions to the "Shores of the Polar Sea" and mapped the North American northern coastline from Alaska in the East to Point Turnagain in the East. Perished on his third expedition, together with 129 Officers and men.

Sir George Back (1796-1878)

George Back was Franklin's companion on two earlier expeditions where he demonstrated resourcefulness and energy. In 1832 he volunteered to lead a rescue mission to search for Captain Ross. Following the outward route of the earlier expeditions, he arrived at his winter headquarters north of Great Slave Lake in time to hear that Ross and his party had returned safely to England. Back decided to stay and explore the last major river between the Coppermine and Hudson's Bay and to survey the coastline.

His Second Expedition was his last attempt to find a sea route from Hudson's Bay to the Polar Sea.

Captain George F. Lyon (1795-1832)

Captain George Francis Lyon was in command of HMS HECLA on Parry's Second Expedition. They spent almost two years in the vicinity of the Inuit community of Igloolik while searching for the ice-choked Fury and Hecla Strait. He befriended native people and took a deep interest in their customs.

His Journal is one of the earliest and most complete descriptions of the
"…habits and dispositions of a people entirely separated from the rest of the world." The Author passes no judgments and simply reports what he observed. Often, he is amazed at the reliance of the native people, surviving under harshest conditions, and allows a great deal of latitude for certain habits that would have been abhorred by his own society back home.

Original Narratives on CD-ROM

First Editions have never been cheap. With modern technology, we can offer facsimile of the Early XIXth Century Explorers' narratives on CD-ROMs in PDF format at an affordable price.

Our CD Books reproduce the complete First London editions as a facsimile (images) of pages and as text, both in ADOBE Acrobat pdf format. The text can be searched for keywords, and parts can be extracted (cut-and-paste) for further study. Illustrations are also reproduced twice: once at a screen resolution and the second time at a resolution (600 dpi) suitable for printing.