Both vessels had extensive libraries. Most ships were issued with the basic ‘Seamen’s Library’, but on this expedition it was augmented to some 1,200 volumes per ship, with technical works on steam propulsion, accounts of previous Arctic expeditions, geographical and nautical magazines, the latest bestsellers, such as The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby, and evergreen favourites like The Ingoldsby Legends and Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield. They also had stacks of the humorous satirical magazine Punch, which had first appeared four years previously and ran until 2002.
