The name of the Austrian born naval officer and polar explorer Carl Weyprecht (1838–1881) is well known to all polar researchers. Under his leadership, the Austro-Hungarian expedition on the vessel Tegetthoff was intended to sail to the Bering Strait crossing the North Pole. Unfortunately the expedition which took place in 18729–1874 did not achieve that as the ship was trapped in the ice and the expedition had to be limited ‘only’ to the discovery of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa [Franz Josef Land]. In addition, Weyprecht initiated the organisation of the International Polar Year (IPY) (1882–1883) in order to obtain a more systematic survey of the climate and geophysics of the polar areas of the earth. These are the undertakings associated with the name of Weyprecht in general and special encyclopedias (for example Holland Reference Holland1994). A systematic study of Weyprecht as a polar researcher and an organiser of the International Polar Year is absent in the literature in English. Even in German Weyprechtiana is also rather scanty. However, the surveys and investigations about Weyprecht compiled by Heinrich von Littrow (Reference Littrow1881), Alexander Burger (Reference Burger1910) and Egon Ihne (Reference Ihne1913) and an exhibition catalogue compiled in the National Library of Austria on the occasion of the hundreth anniversary of the polar expedition guided by Weyprecht and Julius Payer (100 Jahre 1973) deserve attention. The latest publication appeared ‘only’ 36 years ago.

This recently published volume represents an important addition to the limited literature on the life and activities of Weyprecht. It enables the reader to follow in detail the career of a young man, fascinated with the sea, from a being naval officer to becoming an important figure in the history of science. Due to the diligence of the authors, 338 letters and archival documents, mainly in Gothic script which was the predominating literary form in Germany in the 19th century, have been deciphered and are presented. The letters and documents belonging to the period of 1856–1881, mainly contain Weyprecht's letters (325 in total) to his parents, to the German geographer and publicist August Petermann and to Count Hans Wilczek, an enthusiastic supporter of polar exploration who financed several expeditions. In the book, has also been included some letters, concerning different questions relating to polar exploration, to Weyprecht from the above mentioned persons. These provide a rounded view, in the first instance, of the problems connected with the initial preparations for the IPY. The same aim is served by letters and documents (for example to Karl Ernst von Baer, Heinrich Wild, and Heinrich von Littrow) disclosing to an attentive reader very important details of the later preparations for the IPY. The letters have been ordered according to different periods in the life of Weyprecht and have been briefly summed up and commented on at the beginning of each period. The book includes a complete subject index and a list of personal names provided with dates and the most important biographical data (pages 545–557, 557–587). In addition, the authors have attempted with success to compile a very accurate bibliography of the papers by Weyprecht and of the secondary writings devoted to his activities (pages 559–570). Numerous mostly high quality illustrations in the book deserve our special attention.

The introductory articles by the compilers add depth to the treatment. Frank Berger and Bruno P. Besser prepared a brief account of the life and activities of Weyprecht and Wilczek (pages 11–18). The reader learns about the events which stimulated Wilczek, one of the richest men of Austria, in his interest in polar research; how the friendship between Weyprecht and Wilczek began and developed, and the share of Wilczek's contribution to Austrian polar exploration over 40 years. Reihard A. Krause's long article about Weyprecht as the initiator of international polar research (pages 19–54) is very interesting. In this article, Krause analyses the state of German polar research, problems connected with it and the research goals (for example the question of the open polar sea put forward by Petermann, the navigability at the eastern coast of Greenland, the Gulf Stream in the Arctic Ocean) of the 1860s and the role of Weyprecht in the solution of these problems. In his opinion, the Tegetthoff expedition had convinced Weyprecht that Petermann's hypotheses on the physical geography of the Arctic Ocean were mostly incorrect and that the best way to obtain answers on the role of the Arctic in the climate of the earth and earth geomagnetism was to carry out synchronous observations at several research stations. According to Krause, in addition to Weyprecht, there were other German researchers, such as Carl Koldewey (in 1871) and the geophysicist Georg Neumayer, who also considered the idea of international collaboration in polar areas. The latter had touched upon the problem in his report in 1874 (Krause Reference Krause1992: 258, 292). But there is no proof that Weyprecht knew about the ideas of Koldewey and Neumayer when he, in 1875, put forward his plan for international collaboration in research on the geophysics and climate of polar areas.

The volume includes many letters by Weyprecht (144 in total) that are published for the first time. These provide information concerning his service in the Austrian navy (1856–1870); his scientific ambitions in connection with Petermann's plan for German polar expeditions (1865) and his attempts to take part in them (1868 and 1869), and the realisation of his projects of personal investigation (in 1871, on the ship Isbjørn to Novaya Zemlya and in 1872–74 on Tegetthoff). The book contains Weyprecht's diary, published for the first time, describing the return of the members of the expedition from Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa [Franz Josef Land] to Novaya Zemlya (May–September 1974). The correspondence concerning the preparations for the IPY (128 letters all in all) is set out in full. All these data make the book extremely valuable.

Of special interest are the last letters, which throw light on the birth of international scientific collaboration. They also indicate how imprecise was Weyprecht's plan for this. The proposed ideas were original, but he lacked experience for the realisation of them in practice and for working out unified research methods acceptable to different countries. From Weyprecht's letters, it appears that he supposed that organisational questions would be solved spontaneously through personal initiative. However, this proved to be more complicated due to the political circumstances and different interests of the countries which were expected to join the project. It was only the organising committee with governmental mandates that was able to carry out Weyprecht's project. The Swiss geophysicist Heinrich Wild, living in St Petersburg, understood the actual situation and was the one to find the solution for putting Weyprecht's idea into practice. Several later great international research projects, including the second IPY in 1932–1933, were based on these structures.

To conclude, the publication of Weyprecht's letters is a valuable resource for historians carrying out in depth studies in polar history, but certainly not for the general reader who is expecting entertaining adventures. This book also makes an important addition to the history of Austro-Hungarian navy and to the biography of Weyprecht. In other words, it is an important document describing that period in the development of science through the eyes of Weyprecht.