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

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.