Series:

Cambridge Library Collection - Polar Exploration

1 primary work • 3 total works

Volume 2

Cover of Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait: Volume 2
Frederick William Beechey (1796–1856), naval officer and hydrographer, was born into a family of artists, joined the Navy at a young age and went on to travel the world to survey coastlines and oceans. He published several accounts of his expeditions to destinations including the Arctic and Africa. This two-volume work, first published in 1831, describes his voyage as commander of the Blossom in 1825–1828. The ship's mission was to support the exploration of the North-West Passage by travelling eastwards via the Bering Strait to meet the explorers Sir John Franklin and Sir Edward Parry who were travelling west from the North Atlantic. Volume 2 follows the expedition from California, where it had overwintered, via Hawai'i and China, back to the Bering Strait for a second summer. It includes a vocabulary of Eskimo words, notes on harbours and navigation, and a vivid description of the northern lights.

Cover of A Voyage of Discovery Towards the North Pole
Having joined the Royal Navy at the age of ten, Frederick William Beechey (1796-1856) had risen to the rank of lieutenant when he served under John Franklin on the 1818 British expedition to the Arctic in search of a possible route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Two ships, the Dorothea and the Trent, were sent to find a route via the seas around Spitsbergen. A little north of 80 Degrees their progress was halted by ice. Sailing west to Greenland, the Dorothea was seriously damaged and the expedition aborted. Beechey's account remains the principal source for this voyage as neither Franklin nor the overall commander David Buchan published their journals. Beechey's Arctic service equipped him to later command the Blossom in northern waters: his two-volume Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait (1831) is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Cover of Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait 2 Volume Set
Frederick William Beechey (1796-1856), naval officer and hydrographer, joined the Navy at a young age and went on to survey coastlines and oceans around the world. He published several accounts of his expeditions to destinations including the Arctic and Africa. This two-volume work, first published in 1831, describes his voyage in 1825-1828 to the Bering Strait, where he was to meet the explorers Sir John Franklin and Sir Edward Parry if they succeeded in finding the North-West Passage. Volume 1 records Beechey's outward journey, including visits to Pitcairn Island, where he met the last surviving Bounty mutineer and documented his story, Tahiti, and Hawai'i, and his first season exploring the Bering Strait. Volume 2 follows the expedition from California via China to its second Arctic summer, and includes a vocabulary of Eskimo words, notes on harbours and navigation, and a vivid description of the northern lights.