The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger. Three Volume Set. (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Third Series, vols. 12, 20, and 21.) by William Scoresby; C. Ian Jackson (Editor) - 2003, 2008, 2009: Volume I: The Voyages of 1811, 1812 and 1813. Volume II: The Voyages of 1814, 1815 and 1816. Volume III: The Voyages of 1817, 1818 and 1820.

London: Hakluyt Society. Complete three volume set. Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Third Series, vols. 12, 20, and 21. First Edition. Hardcover. Blue cloth over boards with gilt titles to spine and vignette of sailing ship Victoria on front board. As New books in Fine jackets. Jacket spines slightly sunned. Heavy item (6 lbs/2.7 kg); extra charge for Expedited, Express or International shipping.

Volume I: The Voyages of 1811, 1812 and 1813. 2003. pp. lxi + 242. 9 monochrome illustrations, 5 maps. ISBN 0 904180 82 4
Volume II: The Voyages of 1814, 1815 and 1816. Appendix by George Huxtable. 2008. pp. xxxvii + 308. 8 monochrome illustrations, 3 maps. ISBN 978-0-904180-92-3.
Volume III: The Voyages of 1817, 1818 and 1820. Appendix by Fred M. Walker. 2009. pp. xlii + 245, 2 plates, 3 maps, 6 line drawings. ISBN 978-0-904180-95-4.

William Scoresby (1789-1857) made his first voyage with his father in the whaler Resolution at the age of eleven. Three years later he was formally apprenticed to his father and another three years saw him promoted to chief officer. On his twenty-first birthday, his father moved to another ship, relinquishing command of the Resolution to his son.

Another ten years would see the publication in 1820 of Scoresby's two-volume An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery, described as "the foundation stone of Arctic science for their scientific records and social and religious comment as well as detailed descriptions of navigation and whaling.

The second volume of this set contains the unpublished accounts of Scoresby's three voyages in the Esk in 1814-16. These journals show the dangers inherent in annual sailings to the Greenland Sea in latitudes 78° to 80° N. The dangers were not merely those of besetment and damage by the ice where the bowhead whales had to be sought, nor of the persistent fog and frequent gales characteristic of these icy seas; human error and stupidity could be equally disastrous.

For high drama, the 1816 journal is outstanding. When part of the Esk's hull was torn off by ice, various methods of repair were tried without success, including a drastic attempt to invert the empty ship in the sea at the ice-edge. Scoresby's ability to return the Esk safely to England seems as incredible now as it was to the crews of the other whaling ships who had eagerly anticipated plundering an abandoned ship in the Arctic.

In addition to the journals and the editor's introduction, the second volume also contains a unique "second view" of the 1814 voyage: the journal kept by a young supernumerary, Charles Steward, and an appendix by George Huxtable, FRIN, on Scoresby's navigation methods.

The third and final volume in this contains Scoresby's unpublished accounts of his three voyages of 1817, 1818 and 1820. During these years Scoresby's life changed profoundly. An unsuccessful hunt in 1817 led to several changes in partners. At the end of 1818 Scoresby moved to Liverpool, where he completed the writing of An Account of the Arctic Regions and watched the construction of his new ship, the Baffin. After his first summer ashore for many years in 1819, in 1820 he brought back to Liverpool a "full ship" of seventeen whales, despite being faced by mutineers in the crew who earlier had been involved in piracy in the Caribbean and, apparently, hoped to seize the Baffin "and convey her and her valuable cargo to a foreign country."

In each of the journals, Scoresby wrote detailed descriptions of his landings: on Jan Mayen in 1817, western Spitsbergen in 1818, and the Langanes peninsula in northeast Iceland in 1820. The 1817 voyage, when Scoresby and others found the Greenland Sea relatively free of ice, involved him in the renewed British interest in arctic maritime exploration after the Napoleonic Wars. The Introduction to this volume contains a major reappraisal of Scoresby's role, especially in regard to his alleged mistreatment by John Barrow, Second Secretary of the Admiralty. The volume also contains an appendix by Fred M. Walker on the building of wooden whaleships such as the Baffin that were capable of routine ice navigation under sail as far north as 80° N.