On 14 December 1911, Roald Amundsen (1872 1928) and his Norwegian team became the first humans to reach the South Pole, a month before their ill-fated British rivals under the leadership of Robert Falcon Scott. Reissued here is the 1912 English translation of Amundsen's two-volume account of how this extraordinary and perilous feat was achieved. Illustrated throughout with illuminating maps and photographs, the text contains important details relating to matters of climate, equipment, diet, sledging and survival in forbiddingly cold conditions over uncertain terrain. Underpinning Amundsen's success, the use of dogs, skis and fur clothing made possible the dash to the pole and back without the loss of human life. While careful to present the expedition in the best light, Amundsen's work remains essential reading in the history of Antarctic exploration. Volume 2 covers the momentous journey to the pole and back, closing with chapters and appendices on nautical and scientific topics."

At the outset of the twentieth century, Antarctica was scarcely explored or understood. Penetrating the pack ice in the purpose-built Discovery, the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-4) established a base in McMurdo Sound, enabling scientists and sledging parties to significantly push back the boundaries of the unknown. Published in 1905, this acclaimed two-volume work by the naval officer and expedition leader Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) recounts the trials, errors and achievements of an undertaking which laid the foundations for future research and Scott's later journey to the South Pole. The work is greatly enhanced by many photographs as well as illustrations by the doctor, zoologist and artist Edward A. Wilson (1872-1912). Volume 1 traces the expedition's preparatory phases and the voyage from England to Antarctica via New Zealand. Scott discusses the location of winter quarters and the first polar winter. Chapters on sledging conclude the volume.

Daines Barrington (1727/8 1800) and Mark Beaufoy (1764 1827) became fellows of the Royal Society in 1767 and 1790 respectively. Barrington's contributions to the Philosophical Transactions favoured natural history, but another of his passions was polar exploration and a potential sea route through the Arctic Ocean. Beaufoy, an astronomer and physicist, was notably involved in discerning changes in the earth's magnetic field. Reissued in its 1818 second edition, these papers discuss Arctic exploration and evidence for the theorised open polar sea. Barrington's tracts, originally dating from the 1770s, draw on the testimony of those navigators who had ventured into high latitudes. Though flawed, his hopes of explorers pushing through the pack ice retain considerable historical interest. A map of the North Pole and the surrounding region, so far as it was known, is included. The appendix contains Beaufoy's papers from 1817, including questions answered by Russians who wintered on Spitsbergen."

Aged sixteen, Alexander Burnes (1805 41) took up a post in the Bombay army, and speedily learned both Hindustani and Persian. His skills led him to political work, and he himself proposed a covert expedition to Bukhara, to survey the country, but also to observe the expansionist activities of the Russians in central Asia. In 1832, he set off, with an army doctor, and two Indians as surveyor and secretary. They travelled in local dress and adopted whatever personas a situation required. Having reached Bukhara, they continued overland to the Caspian Sea, and then to Tehran, returning to Bombay by sea in 1833. This three-volume account of his adventures, published in 1834, was an instant bestseller. Volume 1 describes the journey to Bukhara, through Afghanistan into barely explored territory. Burnes continued his diplomatic activities in Afghanistan, but was murdered there by a mob in 1841."

Aged sixteen, Alexander Burnes (1805 41) took up a post in the Bombay army, and speedily learned both Hindustani and Persian. His skills led him to political work, and he himself proposed a covert expedition to Bukhara, to survey the country, but also to observe the expansionist activities of the Russians in central Asia. In 1832, he set off, with an army doctor, and two Indians as surveyor and secretary. They travelled in local dress and adopted whatever personas a situation required. Having reached Bukhara, they continued overland to the Caspian Sea, and then to Tehran, returning to Bombay by sea in 1833. This three-volume account of his adventures, published in 1834, was an instant bestseller. Volume 3 is an account of Burnes' earlier diplomatic mission up the Indus to Lahore in 1831. He continued his diplomatic activities in Afghanistan, but was murdered there by a mob in 1841."

Peter Heywood (1772 1831) became known for his involvement in the 1789 mutiny aboard the Bounty. After evading a death sentence thanks to a royal pardon, he was able to advance himself in a distinguished naval career, achieving the rank of post-captain. The question of the North-West Passage, a sea route through the Arctic that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, remained an obsession for the British for much of the nineteenth century. Drawing on his experience as a naval hydrographer and writing under the pseudonym 'Scrutator', Heywood considers the question of the North-West Passage in this 1824 publication by surveying accounts of recent expeditions to the Arctic. While he does not dispute the existence of the much-sought route, he argues that the icy waters would not be navigable for ships. It was not until the early twentieth century that Roald Amundsen and his crew achieved the seemingly impossible."

The disappearance of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition of 1845 led to many rescue attempts, some by the British government and some by private individuals, as well as a large number of works recounting these expeditions and reflecting on the mystery. Little is known about the author of this 1857 work, James Parsons. He begins this dramatic account by noting that the disappearance of a large and well-equipped party is almost unprecedented in the Arctic: nothing certain was known about Franklin's fate twelve years after the last recorded sighting. Parsons' speculations derive from a knowledge of naval practice, and familiarity with the seas and climate of the Arctic region and the records of earlier expeditions. He offers practical suggestions about a new attempt using steam-boats, but knows that this will be to find out what actually happened, because there could now be no possibility of finding survivors.

Son of an Arctic whaler, William Scoresby (1789 1857) made the first of many voyages to northern latitudes when he was just ten years old. Later a scientist and clergyman, he wrote on a wide range of topics, and his observations on the Arctic prompted further exploration of the region. The two works reissued here together draw on his experience of seafaring in difficult conditions. First published in 1835, Memorials of the Sea is coloured by Scoresby's belief in divine providence. He discusses the observance of the Sabbath at sea, and considers the Mary Russell murders of 1828, where a ship's captain killed his crew. Scoresby interviewed the perpetrator himself and draws his own conclusions as to the meaning of the incident. The second work included in this reissue is The Franklin Expedition (1850), drawing together considerations relating to the fate and whereabouts of the missing explorers."

The naturalist and traveller Thomas Pennant (several of whose other works are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) published this account of a journey through Scotland and its islands in 1774. Pennant (1726 98) had already written one account of Scotland, in 1771. (He later claimed that by 'shewing that it might be visited with safety' he had created a tourist boom.) His great enthusiasm was for the Hebrides, and more than half of the book describes his voyage around the islands, though he was frustrated by bad weather in getting to Staffa. He transcribes instead an account by Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited in the same year, and in his preface he acknowledges the researches and notes on particular places which had been provided by friends and correspondents. This is a genial account of the history, environment and people of a region still exotic to many Britons."

John Bell (1691 1780) trained as a physician, but preferred a life of travel and diplomacy. He entered the service of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, and had already taken part (as the expedition's doctor) in a government mission to Persia in 1715 18 when he was asked to join a further embassy to China. This two-volume work, published in 1763, describes both these journeys. The first part of Volume 1 contains an account of the Persian expedition, and the second a narrative of the journey across Siberia to the walls of Beijing. It includes fascinating anecdotes of the peoples encountered, and their environment, beliefs and customs, including a female Siberian shaman, the pet musk deer of an exiled Swedish general, and the interdependence of marmots and rhubarb (at this time a valuable medicinal drug). This is a delightful account of an area then hardly known in the west."

There is currently much concern about our trees and woodlands. The terrible toll taken by Dutch elm disease has been followed by a string of further epidemics, most worryingly ash chalara - and there are more threats on the horizon. There is also a widely shared belief that our woods have been steadily disappearing over recent decades, either replanted with alien conifers or destroyed entirely in order to make way for farmland or development. But the present state of our trees needs to be examined critically, and from an historical as much as from a scientific perspective. For English tree populations have long been highly unnatural in character, shaped by economic and social as much as by environmental factors. In reality, the recent history of trees and woods in England is more complex and less negative than we often assume and any narrative of decline and loss is overly simplistic. The numbers of trees and the extent and character of woodland have been in a state of flux for centuries. Research leaves no doubt, moreover, that arboreal ill health is nothing new. Levels of disease are certainly increasing but this is as much a consequence of changes in the way we treat trees - especially the decline in intensive management which has occurred over the last century and a half - as it is of the arrival of new diseases. And man, not nature, has shaped the essential character of rural tree populations, ensuring their dominance by just a few indigenous species and thus rendering them peculiarly vulnerable to invasive pests and diseases. The messages from history are clear: we can and should plant our landscape with a wider palette, providing greater resilience in the face of future pathogens; and the most `unnatural' and rigorously managed tree populations are also the healthiest. The results of an ambitious research project are here shaped into a richly detailed survey of English arboriculture over the last four centuries. Trees in England will be essential reading not only for landscape historians but also for natural scientists, foresters and all those interested in the future of the countryside. Only by understanding the essentially human history of our trees and woods can we hope to protect and enhance them.

Winner of the Saltire Society Research Book of the Year Whilst documents and other written material are obvious resources that help shape our view of the past, maps too can say much about a nation's history. This is the first book to take maps seriously as a form of history, from the earliest representations of Scotland by Ptolemy in the second century AD to the most recent form of Scotland's mapping and geographical representation in GIS, satellite imagery and SATNAV. Compiled by three experts who have spent their lives working with maps, Scotland: Mapping the Nation offers a fascinating and thought-provoking perspective on Scottish history which is beautifully illustrated with complete facsimiles and details of hundreds of the most significant manuscript and printed maps from the National Library of Scotland and other institutions, including those by Timothy Pont, Joan Blaeu and William Roy, amongst many others.

This account by three American authors of one thousand years of exploration in the Arctic regions, culminating in the voyage and loss of the U.S.S. Polaris in 1872, was published in 1874. The work, which is derived from many earlier published accounts, begins with a short and highly sentimental biography of the famous American explorer Elisha Kane (whose own works are reissued in this series). It continues with the geography of the Arctic regions, and the voyages of the Vikings and early modern explorers, describing the activities of the whaling fleets as well as the oceanographic and scientific researches of the naval expeditions from many countries seeking the North-West Passage. This is a useful and readable synthesis, which ends with a stirring appeal to the British Admiralty to resume the work of polar exploration which had gone into decline after the end of the official search for Sir John Franklin.

Already a widely travelled man, Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737 1814) set sail again from his native France in 1768 on a voyage which took him via the Indian Ocean islands now known as Mauritius and Reunion. This collection of his letters covers many aspects of the journey, from the conditions aboard ship to the plants, animals and peoples he encountered. The account is interspersed with harsh criticism of European colonialism and the cruelties of the island slave trade. A friend and follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin celebrated nature and simple living in his later work. His novel Paul et Virginie (1788), a tale of youthful innocence unspoilt by Western society, takes place on Mauritius. First published in 1773, the present work is known to have accompanied Darwin on his famous voyage aboard the Beagle. It is reissued here in the English translation that appeared in 1800."

Originally published in 1879, this illustrated work by Albert Hastings Markham (1841-1918) opens with accounts of Arctic exploration from the sixth to the nineteenth centuries, including the expeditions led by Constantine John Phipps (1744-92), William Edward Parry (1790-1855) and George Nares (1831-1915). The journal of Thomas Floyd (c.1754-78), who served as midshipman under Phipps in 1773, comprises the most significant part of the work. Outlining the difficulties faced by an eighteenth-century expedition, ranging from encounters with wildlife to adverse weather conditions, Floyd's narrative is notable also for its inclusion of some early episodes in the career of Horatio Nelson, also a midshipman on the voyage. More than a dozen engravings enhance the work. Other publications by Markham, including A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay (1874) and The Great Frozen Sea (1878), are also reissued in this series.

Thomas M'Keevor served as the physician for the second group of Selkirk settlers that set out in 1812 for the Red River Colony in Canada. This short account of what he witnessed, particularly the crossing of Hudson Bay, appeared in 1819. Greatly interested in icebergs, M'Keevor discusses these 'sea mountains' in detail. He also describes the Inuit peoples encountered, giving a short glossary of Inuit words. Presenting a vivid account of the scene, he was clearly moved by seeing a polar bear protecting her cubs from a hunting party sent out from the ship. Also published in this volume is a brief account in English of the 1806 voyage of the Sirene by the French naval officer Freminville. Initially tasked with attacking British whalers off Spitsbergen, the frigate came close to the coast of Greenland, yet most of the time on land was spent in Iceland, where observations were made of the Icelandic people, fauna and geology."

Based on his journals, with literary assistance provided by a ghostwriter, this 1832 publication gives an account of the early life and later voyages of the American sealer and explorer Benjamin Morrell (1795 1839). The titular adventures consisted of explorations of the Pacific and Antarctic between 1822 and 1831. The text describes unfamiliar bodies of land, sometimes violent interactions with native populations (several of Morrell's crew were killed in the Carteret Islands), and encounters with the slave trade. Morrell also claimed to have been the first American captain to cross the Antarctic Circle. However, there are doubts about the veracity of his narrative, as reported distances, times and locations, particularly in the Antarctic, have proven to be inaccurate. This has been attributed variously to error, exaggeration or outright deception. Morrell himself admits to enhancing his narrative by drawing on information furnished by other navigators."

The American explorer Charles Francis Hall (1821 71) made two voyages to the Arctic to determine the fate of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. While there, he lived with Inuit, learning their language and adopting their way of life. Edited after his death and published in 1879, this account of his second expedition, from 1864 to 1869, brings the conditions he endured vividly to life. Two punishing sledge journeys to King William Island revealed evidence of Franklin's encampment there, but also the stark fact that rumours of survivors were unfounded. The work, which contains a number of fine engravings and maps, also includes appendices presenting Hall's detailed scientific observations and notes of his conversations with the Inuit, which disclosed evidence of cannibalism among Franklin's crew. Based on his earlier expedition, Hall's Life with the Esquimaux (1864) is also reissued in this series."

From an early age Roald Amundsen (1872 1928) was determined to be an explorer. Having gained valuable experience on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897 9), he resolved to conquer the North-West Passage. After three years, using a small fishing vessel, the Gjoa, and only six crew, Amundsen succeeded in reaching Nome, Alaska. First published in Norwegian in 1907, and reissued here in its 1908 English translation, this two-volume account is copiously illustrated with photographs. Volume 1 describes how the ship was chosen and its departure from Norway in June 1903. The men spent two winters on King William Island, learning much about survival from the local Inuit. The observatory they established collected magnetic data for almost two years as well as meteorological data, both of which added greatly to existing Arctic knowledge. Sledge journeys ascertained that the position of the North Magnetic Pole had changed little for more than seventy years."

From an early age Roald Amundsen (1872 1928) was determined to be an explorer. Having gained valuable experience on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897 9), he resolved to conquer the North-West Passage. After three years, using a small fishing vessel, the Gjoa, and only six crew, Amundsen succeeded in reaching Nome, Alaska. First published in Norwegian in 1907, and reissued here in its 1908 English translation, this two-volume account is copiously illustrated with photographs. Volume 2 begins with details of Inuit practices, including the building of snow houses, fishing, and the making of clothes. The navigation to Herschel Island, where the men spent a third winter among whaling vessels, is then recounted. One of the crew died from illness before the Gjoa reached Nome in August 1906. This volume contains a lengthy supplement by Godfred Hansen, describing the sledge journeys to map the coast of Victoria Island, and a detailed index to both volumes."

Prince Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, a grandson of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy, was well known as a mountaineer and traveller when, in 1899, he organised an expedition to the Arctic, obtaining a steam whaling ship in Oslo which he renamed the Stella Polare. His ambition was to reach the highest possible latitude (and possibly the North Pole itself) by careful logistical arrangements, wintering on the ice in Franz Josef Land and using dog-sledges to travel further north. He also intended a scientific survey of the area in which the team passed the winter. His account of the expedition was published in Italian in 1902 and this two-volume English translation by William Le Queux (better known as the author of sensationalist spy and crime novels) appeared in 1903. Volume 1 recounts the genesis and progress of the expedition, including the crew's efforts to free the ice-bound ship using explosives.

Prince Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, a grandson of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy, was well known as a mountaineer and traveller when, in 1899, he organised an expedition to the Arctic, obtaining a steam whaling ship in Oslo which he renamed the Stella Polare. His ambition was to reach the highest possible latitude (and possibly the North Pole itself) by careful logistical arrangements, wintering on the ice in Franz Josef Land and using dog-sledges to travel further north. He also intended a scientific survey of the area in which the team passed the winter. His account of the expedition was published in Italian in 1902 and this two-volume English translation by William Le Queux (better known as the author of sensationalist spy and crime novels) appeared in 1903. Volume 2 gives detailed accounts of the two sledge journeys undertaken by Commander Cagni and Dr Cavalli Molinelli.

This 1850 account of the history of Arctic exploration was dedicated to Lady Franklin, whose energy in spurring on expeditions in search of her husband and his two ships, by then missing for five years, was widely admired. John Shillinglaw (d.1862), a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, was able both to give a historical perspective and to describe the most recent efforts being made to discover Franklin's fate. The narrative begins with the Viking exploration and settlement of Iceland and Greenland, and possible landings in North America. While focusing on British voyages in more recent history, Shillinglaw also includes Russian and Danish activities, as well as the founding of trading firms like the Hudson's Bay Company. But the greater part of the book describes, in considerable detail, voyages from the late eighteenth century up to 1850, and offers a useful synthesis of the first-hand accounts published in this period.

The German scientific writer Georg Hartwig (1813 80) produced many popular works on geographical and natural history topics, among them this book, published in English in 1869. (An American version, with additional chapters, came out in the same year.) Unusually for the period, it surveyed exploration in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic, though the coverage of the latter makes up the bulk of the book. Hartwig's intention is 'to convey solid instruction under an entertaining form', combining the history of exploration with descriptions of the polar regions explored by the mid-century, including Siberia as well as the islands and ice packs of the Arctic Ocean. In this very readable work, Hartwig describes geography, geology and climate, as well as the survival strategies of plant, animal and human life in an extreme environment, using a very wide range of earlier published material to create an integrated narrative."

In 1871 the British government agreed to support an expedition to collect physical and chemical data and biological specimens from the world's oceans. Led by Charles Wyville Thomson (1830 82), the expedition used HMS Challenger, refitted with laboratories. They sailed nearly 70,000 nautical miles around the world, took soundings and water samples at hundreds of stops along the way, and discovered more than 4,000 new marine species. Noted for the discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Pacific's deepest trench, the expedition laid the foundations for modern oceanography. This acclaimed two-volume account, first published in 1877, summarises the major discoveries for the Atlantic legs of this pioneering voyage. Illustrated with plates and woodcuts, Volume 1 describes the laboratories and equipment, the observations from Portsmouth via Tenerife to the Caribbean, and the detailed studies on the Gulf Stream."