"One of the bright objects that solace us in these regions": Labour, Leisure, and the Arctic Shipboard Periodical, 1820-1852

• Published in: Victorian Periodicals Review
• Main Author: Elce, Erika Behrisch
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Project MUSE 2013
• Subjects: History and Philosophy of Science; Literature and Literary Theory; Arctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2013.0028

This article examines three shipboard periodicals from nineteenth-century admiralty-funded polar expeditions and argues that through these texts, explorers—from able seamen to admirals—validated the English presence in the Arctic as effectively as the imposition of English names on the polar map. Officially sanctioned by the admiralty, however, these publications also performed a more subtle, but no less important, function: while submissions were anonymous and open to all members of the crew, material was carefully vetted by officer-editors, and, in delivering to their readers a carefully constructed cheerfulness, the papers helped maintain shipboard discipline by placing even sailors' leisure activities—writing and reading—under admiralty control.