The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909 by E.H. Shackleton, C.V.O.

SHACKLETON, Ernest H.

$10,500.00

Item Number: 147624

London: William Heinemann, 1909.

First trade edition of Shackleton’s thrilling account of one of the earliest attempts to reach the South Pole, “the best book of polar travel which has ever been written” (Manchester Guardian). Large octavo, two volumes in the publisher’s original blue cloth with gilt-lettered spines and large silver pictorial blocks to the front panels, top edge gilt, photogravure frontispiece to each volume, illustrated with 12 captioned tissue-guarded coloured plates and over 200 black and white plates, folding plate and 3 folding maps in rear pocket of Vol. II, numerous in-text illustrations and diagrams throughout, errata slip tipped into vol. II.  With an introduction by Hugh Robert Mill, D.Sc. An account of the first journey to the south magnetic pole by professor T. W. Edgeworth David, F.R.S. Near fine in the rare original dust jackets with some professional restoration mainly to the spines. A very nice example of this desirable highspot in Antarctic literature.

Ernest Shackleton here tells the quite remarkable story of the British Antarctic expedition of 1907 to 1909. Shackleton and his men made it to within 97 miles of the South Pole, experiencing along the way every hardship possible, then returning to their wooden ship before the ice crushed it. "A more interesting book of polar exploration . . . has yet to be written" (New York Times Book Review).