ABSTRACT
Although both literature and history have been enriched by some of the great diarists and correspondents it was not unusual years ago for men of prominence to destroy their personal papers before they died. Whatever their reasons, they caused their future biographers frustration and endless trouble. In the case of John Rae, there is no evidence that his letters or other personal papers were intentionally destroyed. They were simply dissipated in the course of his wanderings and when he died he left for posterity a collection of scientific papers, mainly about geology, badly disorganized, and almost nothing of a personal nature. There was a handwritten note on the back page of a child’s exercise book: “Never have advocated any measure but from a settled conviction of its justice a profound feeling of its righteousness.” On the same page is another note, “Feby 20 1855. One cow sent to Pasture.”
