Herein is contained a developing resource of all the Franklinia and The Terror stuff I’ve read over the last year. Part of it is knowledge acquisition due to increasing levels of obsession, and part is research for fanwork stuff (some completed, some not). I’ve read almost all of it, although a few of the books are still on the to-read pile. Bruce jokes about how my dissertation on the Franklin Expedition is coming along, and … in all honesty, the amount of reading I’ve done on this is probably good for an undergraduate dissertation at the very least, and it wasn’t until I made a systematic attempt to catalogue everything that I realized how extensive the reading was. Anyway, I’ve organized it all and am posting it in case anyone finds it useful, and I’ll continue to update it as I acquire more stuff. Enjoy.
Primary sources
“A memoir of the late Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier”. Dublin: William Kirkwood, 1859.
Short biographical sketch of Crozier created when efforts were in progress to build a memorial for him.
“Folios 316-320: HMS Terror allotment numbers 25736-25767, year of allotment 1845”. National Archives.
“Folios 321-328: HMS Erebus allotment numbers 25768-25806, year of allotment 1845”. National Archives.
Allotment information for the Franklin seamen and marines; i.e. their designated next of kin for the allotments of partial wages. More about the allotment registers and they they’re important on the National Archives blog.
The Nautical Magazine And Naval Chronicle: a Journal of Papers On Subjects Connected With Maritime Affairs. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1837.
HathiTrust’s invaluable archive of the Nautical Magazine. The determined seeker can find more Franklin-related material here, including (in the archives for 1842-1844) all NINE cantos of James Fitzjames’s Voyage of HMS Cornwallis.
“Franklin relics”. The Royal Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
A good way to lose the better part of the afternoon.
“Forensic Medicine: Trial of John Hamilton for Assault, with Intent to Ravish.—Tests for the Seminal Fluid”. London and Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science. Cormack, John Rose, ed. Edinburgh: Andrew Jack, April 1844.
This recounts the role John and Harry Goodsir played in convicting a criminal, via the most advanced forensic science of the 1840s. WARNING: the case in question involves sexual assault on a minor, and the details of the case are pretty disturbing. Click with caution.
Anderson, John. Sprigs of Heather; or, the rambles of “May-Fly” with old friends. Edinburgh: John Menzies & Co., 1884.
Memoir by a friend of Harry Goodsir’s. Notable for the very earnest and quite terrible poem he wrote in memoriam of Harry, “The Explorer’s Grave”, which you’ll find on page 86.
Crozier, Francis. “Francis Crozier Letter to James Ross (1845 July 9)”. The Franklin Mystery: Life and Death in the Arctic. Text of Crozier’s last letter to his friend Ross, in which he is clearly both miserable and full of foreboding.
Cracroft, Sophia. Lady Franklin Visits Sitka, Alaska, 1870, Sophia Cracroft DeArmond, R.N, ed. Alaska Historical Society, 1981.
Account from the diaries of Sophia Cracroft of her and Lady Franklin’s visit to Sitka, in which we learn that Sophia was an observant and sharp-witted lady in her own right.
Fitzjames, James. “Arctic Matters”. The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle, A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected with Maritime Affairs, March 1852. Observations from Fitzjames, including some truly delightful commentary on the crew.
Fitzjames, James. “Arctic Matters”. The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle, A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected with Maritime Affairs, April 1852. More observations, including an interestingly laconic account of what happened when Crozier let Erebus and Terror sail the wrong way for half a day without telling Franklin and Fitzjames. The same journal also includes “Distance By Sound”., an article which sheds some light on what Des Voeux and the others are up to at the beginning of “First Shot a Winner, Lads”.
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “On the specific and generic characters of the araneiform crustacea”. The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, July 1844.
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “Description of some animals found amongst the Gulf-weed”. The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, February 1845
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “Descriptions of some gigantic forms of invertebrate animals from the coast of Scotland”. The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, June 1845
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “On the development, structure and Œconomy of the acephalocysts of authors; with an account of the natural analogies of the entozoa in general”. The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, January 1845
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “On several new species of Crustaceans allied to Saphirina”. The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, November 1845.
Goodsir, Harry D. S. “On the anatomy of Forbesia”. Annals of Anatomy and Physiology. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox. London: R. and J.E. Taylor, 1850.
Goodsir, John and Goodsir, Harry D.S. Anatomical and Pathological Observations. Edinburgh: Myles MacPhail, 1845.
Most of the papers in this compilation are by John Goodsir, but there are three from Harry: “The testis and its structure in the decapodous crustacea”, “The mode of reproduction of lost parts in the crustacea”, “Anatomy and development of the cystic entozoa”. Also features accompanying illustrations by Harry.
Goodsir, John, and Lonsdale, Henry. Anatomical Memoirs of the Late John Goodsir. William Turner, ed. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1868.
This book collects the papers of John Goodsir, Harry’s eldest brother, and includes a somewhat overwrought but nonetheless informative biography with a fair amount of wordcount dedicated to Harry.
Goodsir, Robert Anstruther. An Arctic Voyage to Baffin’s Bay and Lancaster Sound: In Search of Friends with Sir John Franklin. London: John Van Voorst, 1850.
Robert Goodsir’s notes from the voyage he took into the Arctic to find out what happened to his brother.
Irving, John. Lieut. John Irving, a memorial sketch with letters. Bell, Benjamin, ed. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1881.
A biography of Lt. John Irving, including many of his letters documenting his career up to his departure on Terror.
Kennedy, William. A Short Narrative of the Second Voyage of the Prince Albert, in Search of Sir John Franklin. London: W. H. Dalton, 1853.
Kennedy was a Cree/Metis Canadian who went looking for Franklin in 1851. This article by David McNab and Paul-Emile McNab gives a good overview of Kennedy’s expedition, in which he learned quite a lot from the Inuit which helped his own team’s survival (bar one idiot European who was stuck with him courtesy of Lady Jane).
Parks Canada. “Parks Canada Guided Tour Inside HMS Terror”. YouTube, 28 August 2019
A look inside HMS Terror, 171 years after she was abandoned.
Potter, Russell. “Muster rolls of HMS Terror”. Rhode Island College.
Compiled by Russell Potter, drawing from Richard Cyriax’s Sir John Franklin’s Last Arctic Expedition and the Admiralty archives.
Rasmussen, Knud. The Netsilik Eskimos, Social Life and Spiritual Culture. Cophenhagen: Gyldendal, 1931.
Part of Rasmussen’s report on the fifth Thule Expedition, in the early 1920s. Of his encounters with the indigenous people whose oral traditions included stories of the Franklin Expedition, he writes: “I must admit there is nothing particularly exciting about these experiences, but perhaps just because of that they provide good testimony of the good memories and trustworthiness of the Eskimos. These encounters with white men have been quite en passant, and there has not been time to learn to know the people they mention in the slightest; and yet so many, many years afterwards they preserve the traditions of their experiences with unembellished and sober reliability. If the particular reports of these expeditions are turned up the ancient verbal traditions be found to be in the best agreement with the books.” (Spoiler: he’s 100% correct.)
Blogs and fanworks
Airriess, Sarah “Tealin”. “Posts tagged the terror amc.” Tumblnoodl.
Illustrations of and commentary on The Terror, by an artist who’s creating a graphic novel adaptation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World, which is a memoir of another famous British polar disaster, the Terra Nova expedition. Check it out.
Atwood, Margaret. “The Age of Lead”. Wilderness Tips. New York: Anchor, 1998.
Short story from Atwood’s collection Wilderness Tips, which takes its inspiration from the Beattie exhumations at Beechey Island.
Battersby, William. Hidden Tracks.
Archive of the late William Battersby’s blog, author of James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Expedition.
Betts, Matthew. Building HMS Terror.
One man’s journey to build a scale model of HMS Terror.
calamity-bean. “Unexpectedly and quite by accident, I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole researching the historical Charles Frederick Des Voeux”. Works in Progress.
Very well-researched sketch of des Voeux’s life.
Carney, Peter. Erebus and Terror files.
More Franklin info and research.
knit-the-terror. Adventures in Victorian Knitting.
One knitter’s determined efforts to reproduce knitwear from the show. Her rendition of the Fitzjames sweater is SUPERB.
Paredes, Andrés. Kabloonas.
Blog devoted to the full range of Arctic expeditions from the 16th to the early 20th century. The author has created an excellent interactive map of Franklin sites.
Pelonzi, Alessia. “The Terror Fan Art”. Plenty of Pixels
The absolute finest Terror fanart in existence.
Potter, Russell. Visions of the North.
An excellent blog with a ton of Franklin info and research from one of the top Franklin scholars.
radiojamming. “My newest update from the Extremely Exciting Study of the Hartnell Family”. Musical chairs with siege perilous.
A great bit of genealogical research that suggests another family connection amongst members of the expedition crew.
theterroramc. The Terror. Unofficial tumblr that aggregates loads of goodies from the Terror fandom on Tumblr.
theterroramc. “The Terror extras masterpost”. The Terror.
A detailed list of content related to the making of The Terror S1.
Various authors, “The Terror on AO3”. Archive of Our Own.
The The Terror (TV 2018) tag on AO3. Overall the quality of Terror fanworks seems to be pretty high. There are a lot of fix-it AUs; go figure.
Interviews
“The Terror: Talk”. AMC.
General blog for the show, where you can find lots of Q&As with the cast.
Collins, Sean T. “Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies on The Terror’s Voyage to the Edge of Masculinity”. Vulture, 22 June 2018.
Excellent, too-short, thoughtful interview with Harris (Crozier) and Menzies (Fitzjames) about The Terror.
Epstein, Sonia Shechet. “Behind-the-Scenes of AMC’s The Terror”. Museum of the Moving Image: Sloan Science & Film, 13 September 2018.
Interview with Matthew Betts, the archaeologist behind the “Building HMS Terror” blog, who consulted on the series.
Han, Karen. “Actress-singer Nive Nielsen talks AMC’s ‘The Terror’ and representing Inuit heritage on TV”. Mic.com, 27 April 2018.
Nive Nielsen is great, and has many interesting thoughts on her work on the show.
Han, Karen. “How The Terror Crafted Its Haunting, Perfect Series Finale”. Vanity Fair, 21 May 2018.
In which we learn all about the filming of that stuff, you know what I mean, from episode 10.
Articles
Beeby, Dean. “Tragedies in Arctic hamlet sparking talk of a Franklin ‘curse’”. CBC News, 18 December 2018.
Disturbances felt by the modern indigenous residents of Gjoa Haven on King William Island about the exploration of Erebus and Terror.
Bhattacharya, Shaoni. “The great polar mystery: closing in on the truth”. New Scientist, 21 July 2017.
Handy overview of everything known to date about the Franklin mystery.
Edgar, Courtney. “Gjoa Haven elders share Franklin-era oral history with researchers”. Nunatsiaq News, 7 March 2019.
More on the Inuit oral history about Franklin and the Franklin Inuit Oral History Project.
Eschner, Kat. “Tales of the Doomed Franklin Expedition Long Ignored the Inuit Side, But ‘The Terror’ Flips the Script”. Smithsonian, 6 April 2018.
Thoughtful article about how the TV series handled the Inuit elements of the story, and how it did it well and where it fell short.
Kaufman, M. H. “Harry Goodsir and the last Franklin Expedition of 1845”. Journal of Medical Biography, 2004.
Academic journal article about Harry Goodsir’s life. Requires access to academic journal sites.
Lloyd-Jones, Ralph. “The Men Who Sailed With Franklin”. Polar Record, October 2005.
Biographical details of Franklin’s crew as gleaned from archives and other records.
McMaster University. “Strands of hair from member of Franklin expedition provide new clues into mystery”. Phys.org, 5 September 2018.
New challenge to the “they all died of lead poisoning” hypothesis, using data gathered from the remains believed to be those of Harry Goodsir.
McNab, David and McNab, Paul-Emile. “William Kennedy and the Search for Franklin”. Arctic Focus.
Overview of the Kennedy expedition to find Franklin.
Reardon, Sara. “Skeleton May Help Solve Mystery of Doomed Franklin Expedition”. Science, 21 July 2011.
A recent study of the remains brought back and interred at the Royal Maritime Museum suggests that it might be Harry Goodsir’s body rather than that of Lt. Le Vesconte.
Shapton, Leanne. “Artifacts of a Doomed Expedition”. New York Times Magazine, 20 March 2016.
Lovely, elegiac NY Times Magazine article about the Franklin relics and the continuing search for clues in Nunavut.
Smith, Roff. “Arctic shipwreck ‘frozen in time’ astounds archaeologists”. National Geographic, 28 August 2019.
What Parks Canada found in its 2019 exploration of the astonishingly well-preserved interior of HMS Terror.
Smith, Kiona. “Strands of hair shed light on doomed 19th-century Arctic expedition”, Ars Technica, 30 September 2018.
More on the latest remains analysis, including the detail that the presumed-Goodsir remains were found carefully buried (suggesting that his death occurred before the last desperate stages of the final march, where bodies were abandoned where they fell), and the indications that a contributor to his death might have been a serious tooth infection.
Swanston et al. “Franklin expedition lead exposure: New insights from high resolution confocal x-ray fluorescence imaging of skeletal microstructure”. PLOS, 23 August 2018.
Fairly intense academic article on the analysis of the Goodsir remains, for those who really want to dig into the science.
theterroramc. “Prosthetics magazine feature on Filmefex’s work on The Terror”. The Terror, 18 August 2018.
MAJOR WARNING for SFX gore. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Books
Potter, Russell. “The Essential Franklin Bookshelf”. Visions of the North, 19 May 2014.
I’m just going to link to Potter’s reading list here before listing my own library items, because it’s very good.
Alexander, Alison. The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Biography of Lady Jane Franklin, including her life after Franklin’s disappearance and her efforts to secure his legacy.
Battersby, William. James Fitzjames: The mystery man of the Franklin Expedition. Canada: Dundurn, 2010.
A highly enjoyable biography of Commander James Fitzjames, whose life was truly stranger than fiction in many ways. Written after Dan Simmons wrote his novel, it is notable for the number of times Battersby dunks on Simmons, and for the fact that the showrunners of The Terror did a very nice job incorporating the information here to make TV!Fitzjames much more interesting than the novel version.
Beattie, Owen, and Geiger, John. Frozen in Time: The fate of the Franklin Expedition. Canada: Greystone Books, 2004.
This is the research that really promulgated the lead poisoning hypothesis, after Beattie’s expedition exhumed and autopsied the bodies buried at Beechey Island.
Brandt, Anthony. The Man Who Ate His Boots. New York: Anchor Books, 2011.
Popular overview of Franklin and polar exploration.
Fleming, Fergus. Barrow’s Boys: The Original Extreme Adventurers: A Stirring Story of Daring Fortitude and Outright Lunacy. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
Overview of Sir John Barrow and his role in founding the Discovery Service. Also a staggering view of British imperial hubris, as Barrow sends one unlucky expedition after another to its doom.
McCorristine, Shane. The Spectral Arctic: A history of ghosts and dreams in polar exploration. London: UCL Press, 2018.
“This book reveals the hidden stories of dreaming and haunted explorers, of frozen mummies, of rescue balloons, visits to Inuit shamans, and of the entranced female clairvoyants who travelled to the Arctic in search of John Franklin’s lost expedition.”
Palin, Michael. Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time. Canada: Greystone Books, 2018.
A sort of biography of HMS Erebus, from her building in Wales to James Clark Ross’s voyage to Antarctica to the Franklin expedition. More broad than deep, but a very entertaining popular history, and Palin is clearly very into his subject. (There is, however, a startling howler of an error in that he gets Harry Goodsir’s age when the Franklin expedition sailed completely and totally wrong.)
Simmons, Dan. The Terror. New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 2007.
I guess I have to mention this, whether I want to or not. I have Thoughts about all the ways the TV show improved on the book. Many thoughts.
Smith, Michael. Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing?. Ireland: The Collins Press, 2007.
Biography of Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, a low-key, highly competent officer who deserved better in life.
Woodman, David C. Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony – Second Editon. Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015.
Indispensable study of the Inuit oral history around the Franklin expedition and other polar expeditions. The second edition includes commentary on the recently discovered shipwrecks.