What books would you take?

I have read several accounts of Shackleton's 1914 exploratory expedition to the Antarctic, my favorite probably being Endurance by Alfred Lansing.

There are all sorts of archaeology and some of it is a new capacity to reconstruct the recent past. What books were taken to the Antarctic 100 years ago? by Paul Kerley is an example of this phenomenon. There is a photograph of Sir Ernest Shackleton's cabin in the Endurance and on the far wall are shelves of the books he brought with him for the multi-year expedition. The glare and resolution mean that they are simply generic books. However, the Royal Geographic Society recently digitized the expedition's photographs and in that process were able to recapture the necessary resolution and glare control to reveal the books Shackleton brought with him.

A fascinating glimpse into utilitarian and recreational reading on a life-and-death expedition in 1914. In terms of recreation, lots of mysteries and detective stories. There's a copy of Joseph Conrad's first novel.

Interesting insights to a mind of a century ago. Conrad's novel was only a forerunner of his later, more literary work, but it has attracted complimentary attention in recent years as an early instance of a strong female protagonist. There seems to be a proto feminist side to this leader of manly men. In addition to Conrad, there is The Woman's View by Herbert Flowerdew (love the name) which is an advocacy of women's rights. The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, World's End and Thou Fool are all essentially relationship books. I have linked some of the books to free e-book editions.

Encyclopedia Britannica
Seven short plays by Lady Gregory
Perch of the devil by Getrude Atherton
Pip by Ian Hey
Plays: pleasant and unpleasant, Vol 2 Pleasant by G B Shaw
Almayer's folly by Joseph Conrad
Dr Brewer's readers handbook
The Brassbounder by David Bone
The case of Miss Elliott by Emmuska Orczy
Raffles by EW Hornung
The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett
Pros and cons: a newspaper reader's and debater's guide to the leading controversies of the day by JB Askew
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Woman's view by Herbert Flowerdew
Thou Fool by JJ Bell
The Message of Fate by Louis Tracy
The Barrier by Rex Beach
Manual of English Grammar and Composition by Nesfield
A book of light verse
Oddsfish by Robert Hugh Benson
Poetical works of Shelley
Monsieur de Rochefort by H De Vere Stacpoole
Voyage of the Vega by Nordenskjold
The threshold of the unknown region by Clements Markham
Cassell's book of quotations by W Gurney Benham
The concise Oxford dictionary
Chambers biographical dictionary
Cassell's new German-English English-German dictionary
Chambers 20th Century dictionary
The northwest passage by Roald Amundsen
The voyage of the Fox in Arctic seas by McClintock
Whitaker's almanac
World's end by Amelie Rives
Potash and perlmutter by Montague Glass
Round the horn before the mast by A Basil Lubbock
The witness for the defence by AEW Mason
Five years of my life by Alfred Dreyfuss
The morals of Marcus Ordeyne by William J Locke
The rescue of Greely by Commander Winfield Scott Schley
United States Grinnell Expedition by Dr Kane
Three years of Arctic service by Greely
Voyage to the Polar Sea by Nares
Journal of HMS Enterprise by Collinson