SEA OF GLORY America’s Voyage of Discovery - The U.S. Exploring Expedition 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick, read by Dennis Boutsikaris (2003)

While CD audio books are otherwise not being listed in this music Discography, this 5-CD, 6-hour package is the exception, and is a superb invitation/teaser for reading the book by Philbrick.  According to the cover notes, “The U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 was one of the most ambitious undertakings of the nineteenth century.  They discovered a new southern continent, which Wilkes would name Antarctica.  They were the first Americans to reach the treacherous Columbia River; the first to chart dozens of newly discovered islands all across the Pacific.  The story pivots around Charles Wilkes – a self-destructive dynamo who undermined his own prodigious feats by alienating his crew and officers, fighting battles with his sponsors, and jealously guarding what should have been a proud national legacy.”
Polar historian Laurence Kirwan described the U.S. Ex Ex as the worst prepared and most controversial expedition to sail the Antarctic seas (ref. Lonely Planet Antarctica).  Although Antarctic exploration was only part of its mandate, it managed to follow 1250 miles of East Antarctic coastline, later known as Terre Adélie and Wilkes Land, making, arguably, the first east continental sighting just days before the French Expedition under Dumont d’Urville.  CDs 2 & 3 cover the voyages to the South Shetland Islands and along the Adélie Coast, respectively.  Penguin Audiobooks 80023-6; www.penguin.com; (See also FAIR WINDS AND A FOLLOWING SEA by The Boarding Party (2003) - The Old Peacock - in the following “Individual Antarctic songs” commentary.)