A lovely copy of this magnificent book, with distinguished provenance: from the library of Sir James Wordie (1889-1962).
Perhaps the most bibliographically ambitious expedition of the Heroic Age, this beautiful vellum bound set is the official narrative of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1907-1909 British Antarctic Expedition in the ship Nimrod. Released in a limited run of 300 copies, the edition de luxe has the additional third volume, not present with the trade edition of the same year. This volume, separately titled The Antarctic Book, includes the signatures of Sir Ernest Shackleton and every member of the shore party as well as Aeneas MacKintosh, who was invalided out following a tragic accident shortly after arriving at McMurdo Sound, which cost him an eye. The two Australian members of the expedition, Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, have signed on a separate facing leaf, no doubt to simplify the process of collecting the signatures internationally. It also contains reproductions of colour portraits of members of the southern party, woodcuts made by Mawson, and a poem by Shackleton. As usual, this is the second corrected state of The Antarctic Book.
Furthermore, this copy retains its fragile original slipcase, described by Rosove as ‘rare’. This card and cloth casing in which the set was distributed was only noted as present with one of the eleven copies he examined for his Antarctic bibliography. This is perhaps due to its relative unsuitability to contain such a weighty set, added to the propensity of vellum to shrink and expand in response to climactic fluctuations. The present slipcase is split at the joints, but has nevertheless served its purpose in preserving this copy in lovely condition.
In the field of Antarctic book collecting, this impressive publication is perhaps only surpassed by the expedition’s other remarkable achievement, the Aurora Australis. Written, printed and bound in the hut at Cape Royds during the winter of 1908, it seems only fitting that an expedition which produced such a substantial milestone in book production would seek to commemorate the official narrative with a sumptuous deluxe set such as this. Indeed, when considering the meeting points of fine printing and expedition texts in the early twentieth century it’s hard to imagine that T.E. Lawrence would not have held this book as a benchmark for his 1926 Cranwell edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Even the paper for The Heart of the Antarctic was carefully considered and commissioned from Van Gelder Zonen, incorporating the custom watermark “1907 BAE 1909”.
Nimrod was Sir Ernest Shackleton’s first foray into captaincy, following his participation in Scott’s Discovery expedition of 1901-1904. Neither of these missions fulfilled their primary objectives of reaching the pole, though Shackleton, Marshall, Adams and Wild did achieve a new Farthest South of 88° 23’ S in their attempt, a mere 97.5 nautical miles shy. They also ascended Mount Erebus for the first time, and Edgeworth David’s party reached the estimated location of the South Magnetic Pole.
This copy comes from the collection of Sir James Mann Wordie, and thence by descent through his family. Wordie joined Shackleton’s crew on his 1914-1917 Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition aboard Endurance, serving as geologist and chief of scientific staff. After a storied career in the polar regions and in Naval Intelligence, Wordie held the position of chairman of the Committee of Management of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, and as president of the Royal Geographical Society.
Rosove, 305 A.2; Spence, 1096.
