Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First signed limited edition: Heart of the Antarctic number 130 of 330 numbered copies, The Antarctic Book one of 300 unnumbered, signed by all the members of the shore party, here in the second, corrected state, the contents without the mistaken reference to “Aurora Australis”, and no signature “d” to p. 26.
Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper of volume I: “To Lord Northcliffe with best wishes from the Author. E. H. Shackleton 1911”.
Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe (1865-1922), proprietor of the Daily Mail, was, like Shackleton, of Anglo-Irish background. Northcliffe took a keen interest in Polar exploration, he was an important sponsor of the Discovery Expedition of 1901-04, on which Shackleton served as Third Officer, and the earlier Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to the Arctic in 1894-97.
The Daily Mail played a key role in the promotion of Shackleton’s iconic status: “When Shackleton returned to civilization following the Nimrod expedition, he was eager to get word to the Daily Mail, with which he had a contract for exclusive rights to the story. Before the ship returned to Lyttelton harbor New Zealand, Shackleton slipped in at Stewart Island and sent a lengthy wire to his newspaper. Within days word of his accomplishment spread around the world. Aided by the slant of the Daily Mail, which proclaimed Shackleton the conqueror of the South Pole. since he had nearly found the route to the Pole and determined that the pole was on that lofty plain the Antarctic Plateau, Shackleton instantly became famous” (T. H. Baughman, Shackleton of the Antarctic, 2009, pp. 41-42).
The Heart of the Antarctic is Shackleton’s account of the British Antarctic Expedition of 19079 (Nimrod) and “remains one of the half-dozen greatest polar accounts” (ibid.). “Their sledge journey to the south magnetic pole was one of the three foremost achievements of this expedition. The other two achievements were, first, the ascent and survey of Mount Erebus (12,448 feet), the active volcano on Ross Island and, second, the southern sledge journey, which reached within 100 miles of the south pole” (ODNB). Shackleton’s diary entries for the latter, published here “virtually unaltered” constitute “one of the most compelling narratives in the Antarctic literature” (Rosove p.386).
The expedition established Shackleton as a “bona fide English hero,” but the success of the book did little to alleviate “the financial problems left to him by the expedition” (Books on Ice). Sir Raymond Priestley (18861974), a British Geologist and Antarctic explorer who accompanied Shackleton on the 19071913 Antarctic expeditions, said, “For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton”.
This three-volume limited edition is “one of the most handsome productions in the Antarctic canon” (ibid.); the “most luxurious publication to have appeared during the ‘heroic age’ of Antarctic exploration” (Taurus). Presentation sets are genuinely uncommon and highly desirable, and the more so with such a striking association, linking one of the towering figures of polar exploration and “the greatest figure who ever walked down Fleet Street” (ODNB).
UPDATE – BOOK SOLD
