Scott, Captain Robert Falcon | Scott’s final journey into Antarctica

Scott, Captain Robert Falcon

Scott's Last Expedition. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1913

2 volumes, 8vo (235 x 160mm). (Vol.1) 2pp. adverts; (vol.2) 9 folding maps, 1 colored, 262 photographic illustrations on 182 plates, including 5 panoramas, 24 reproductions of sketches, 17 colored. Publisher's blue cloth, top edge gilt. Dust-jackets; adhesive tape marks and light wear to edges. Slipcase.

First edition, retaining the scarce dust-jackets.

Scott's Terra Nova Expedition, officially known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was to be the Captain's last trip to Antarctica. While the expedition achieved a number of its scientific and geographical goals, Scott was beaten to the South Pole by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.

"The Pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected ... Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here.. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it." (pp. 544-5).

It was on the journey back from the Pole that Scott and his companions, overcome by exhaustion and frostbite, certainly compounded by the disappointment of being beaten to their goal, perished in a particularly harsh blizzard. Scott's last diary entry takes place on 29 March 1912. The tent containing their bodies was found on 12 November and his journal was recovered and published as the present volume 1, along with the various scientific work undertaken by the surviving members as volume 2. Its publication was an immediate success, with three editions being printed in 1913 alone.

REFERENCES:

Rosove 290; Spence 1056; Taurus Collection 77

PROVENANCE:

Contemporary ownership inscription to ffeps, "E.M.M. Alexandra, Nov 1913."

See also D5Q8P, D5Q8J, D5HHQ, D5Q8K, and D5Q8G.