Antiquarian books have long been big business in the polar world, as first editions of expedition accounts from the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration and the nineteenth-century Arctic can sell for very high prices. Few are as dear as the deluxe three-volume edition of Ernest Shackleton's The heart of the Antarctic, which was bound in vellum and signed by the members of the shore party of the Nimrod Expedition (Shackleton 1909). It sells (when it sells) for around £30,000.
Expedition accounts from other parts of the world can be pricy as well, with, for example, James Cook's A voyage towards the South Pole and round the world performed in His Majesty's ships the Resolution and Adventure (Cook 1777) being priced regularly between £4000 and £5000.
Frequently lost in the economics of such books is how they actually came into being. From the late-eighteenth century through the opening decades of the twentieth century, exploration thrilled the western public. The opening of new lands and discovery of unknown peoples, the gains made in scientific knowledge, the elimination of the white spaces on the map, and the demonstration that man could conquer nature at her most extreme were all reasons that not only drove explorers themselves but kept the public fascinated by what these brave men and women did far from the comforts of home. In a time before radio, television, or the internet, written expedition accounts were – along with newspapers and magazines, grand paintings, children's books, and music hall performances – one of the key elements in popularising explorers and their achievements.
No publishing house was more renowned and respected for its books about exploration than John Murray, founded in 1768 and guided for seven generations by successive men of that same name. John Murray did not just concentrate on exploration, as it was also the publisher for many great British writers and scientists, including Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, and John Betjeman. However, the list of explorers whose accounts it brought out was unmatched.
Travels into print is a scholarly examination of the relationship between the house of Murray – during the period of the first three John Murrays – and the world of travel and exploration. It shows how the company began to produce expedition accounts and then became progressively more involved in exploration as, from 1813, it served as the official publisher to the Admiralty – and thus brought out most of the official Arctic and African accounts. Then in 1831, John Murray took over the publication of The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, making it even more closely involved in exploration. Further, the book illustrates how, over a period of decades, John Murray not only helped create a broad public interest in exploration, but gave explorers themselves the chance to gain celebrity, social standing, and scientific credibility.
The launching point for the study is 1773, with John Murray's first venture into exploration: Sydney Parkinson's A journal of a voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty's ship, the Endeavour. It concludes in 1859 – after John Murray had published 239 works of travel or exploration – when Sir Francis Leopold McClintock's The voyage of the Fox in the Arctic seas gave some initial answers to the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Sir John Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition.
Travels into print examines the relationships between explorers, publishers, editors, and printers throughout this period. It does so primarily by following three themes. First, why, how, and for whom did explorers write? That is, what were their motivations for exploring, what kinds of written records did they keep, and how much of their writing was based on assessments of the moment and how much upon later reflection? And how precisely were their personal writings transferred to the submitted manuscript? Second, how did explorers convince first their publisher and then the general public of the truth behind their stories about their actions and events in strange places? Unlike the sceptical reception to the tales and writings of James ‘Abyssinian’ Bruce – whose account was published in this same period (Bruce 1790) – how could Murray's authors persuade readers that what they wrote was an honest image of faraway lands? And third, in what ways and for what purposes did the various John Murrays or their editors amend an author's specific words and general tales?
The result of this in-depth investigation is a significant interdisciplinary study that makes contributions not just to the history of geographical exploration and of the book trade, but also to the history of science, art, and cartography, as well as to popular culture, literary studies, and theories of the meaning and reception of ideas.
From the standpoint of readers of Polar Record, the time period of the book is, sadly, rather short. Works by John Barrow, John Ross, James Clark Ross, William Edward Parry, John Franklin, and George Back are all included in the study, but the post-Franklin-search polar explorers are all excluded. It would have been nice to have expanded the time frame to include the many Arctic and Antarctic expeditions that were conducted up through the Great War. Then again, some of the major accounts would not have been included regardless, since, for example, Robert Falcon Scott's works were published by Smith, Elder, and those of Ernest Shackleton and Douglas Mawson by William Heinemann. Thus, this is a small niggle, as the major conclusions and contributions would have been virtually the same even with a larger set of accounts upon to which to draw.
In summary, this is a well-researched, in-depth analysis of a relevant and interesting subject. It is recommended for those interested in historical geography, the history of books, or the relation between popular culture and exploration,.
