Martin Conway was born and raised in North London. After more than two years of compulsory military service, he started a working life in insurance broking, married and raised a family. His innate creative flair was not given free rein until retirement when he became a self-taught sculptor. At the age of 86, he rekindled a passion for writing that he had had as a young man, and he set himself the task of writing at least 50 short stories.

Preface; 1. Introductory; 2. How Spitsbergen was discovered; 3. Walrus hunting and tentative expeditions; 4. The first hunting expedition to Spitsbergen; 5. The beginning of the Spitsbergen whale-fishery; 6. The troubles in 1613; 7. The events of 1614; 8. The method of the Bay fishery; 9. Troubles with the Dutch in 1617; 10. Troubles at Spitsbergen in 1618; 11. Progress of the whaling industry at Spitsbergen; 12. The final settlement of the Spitsbergen fishery; 13. The first wintering in Spitsbergen; 14. The culmination of the Bay fishery; 15. Smeerenburg's culmination; 16. The decline of English whaling; 17. Whalers' adventures; 18. Incidents of war and other events in Spitsbergen waters; 19. Russian trappers in Spitsbergen; 20. Tschitschagof's expeditions; 21. National expeditions to Spitsbergen; List of the principal voyages to Spitsbergen recorded from 1847 to 1900; Bibliography of the history and geography of Spitsbergen; The cartography of Spitsbergen; Chronological list of maps of Spitsbergen; History of Spitsbergen nomenclature before the nineteenth century; Index.