Scott's Last Expedition:

Being the Journals of Captain R.F. Scott and the Reports of the Journeys and the Scientific Work Undertaken by Dr. E.A. Wilson and the Surviving Members of the Expedition.

Arranged by Leonard Huxley, with a Preface by Sir Clement R. Markham (dated September 1913)

London Smith, Elder and Co. 1913. 2 volumes. First English Edition, First Printing, thick royal 8vo. Vol. I: [xxvi] 627pp., Advertisements; Vol II: [xiv] 500pp., Appendix, Index. Top page edges in gilt with sides and bottom untrimmed. Extensively illustrated with 8 photogravures including frontis of Scott (Vol. I) and Wilson (Vol. II) with tissue guards, 18 color plates with tissue guards (16 from Drawings by Dr. Wilson), 5 fold-out panoramas, 8 folding maps (several in color), 260 full-page and smaller Illustrations from photographs taken by Herbert G. Ponting and other members of the expedition. Publisher’s original blue ribbed cloth lettered in bright gilt on the spines and upper covers. Internally with beginning foxing to title page and frontis only, and with no folds, tears or inscriptions — tight uncracked hinges for both volumes — very clean. Slight wear to spine edges and small rubbed area on cover of Volume I, else an uncommonly well preserved set - bright and clean and a very good + and important set of volumes as well as a cornerstone set of books for a serious collector of polar exploration first person narratives. Very Rare 1st English Edition.

—Conrad p.188, Spence 1056, Renard 1386, Taurus 77, Rosove 290.A1

The Journals of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, which comprise Volume I, are a detailed, concise and moving record of one of the great tragedies in the history of polar exploration conveyed in first person narrative supplemented with extensive photographs, drawings and diagrams. The last entry was made while Scott was dying in the midst of a storm during his return from the South Pole. Volume II contains the accounts of Wilson and Atkinson and several of the scientific reports generated during the expedition. Scott never returned from this expedition, dying on the ice with several of his party. He did manage to preserve his notes where others would find them, protected from the Antarctic winds by his own corpse, and in so doing left the world this vivid record of endurance and tragedy.