Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

2 volumes, royal 8vo (235 x 159 mm). 8 folding maps, 262 photographic illustrations on 182 plates, including 5 panoramas, and 24 reproductions of sketches (spotting throughout, minor tear to one panorama leaf). Original full blue cloth gilt with top edges gilt, all others uncut (wear to spine ends, minor rubbing and sunning to spines). Provenance: Simpson & Williams, Ltd. (bookseller's tickets). 

FIRST EDITION, describing Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition of 1910–1913 aboard the Terra Nova, whose mission was to reach the South Pole. The Polar Party, including Scott, Edward Adrian Wilson, Henry Robertson Bowers, Lawrence Oates, and Taff Evans reached the South Pole on January 16, 1912, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. The five men died on the return journey, first Evans, then Oates, then Scott, Wilson, and Bowers in their tent just 11 miles south of their food depot. The tent was fortuitously found by a search party the following November, ensuring that their story would be known to the world. Scott’s diary has since achieved immortality as one of the most important documents of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Rosove 290.A1; Spence 1056; Taurus Collection 77.

[With]: SCOTT. Scott's Last Expedition: In Two Volumes [etc.]. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1913. 2 volumes, 8vo. 2 folding maps, 8 photographs (some very minor spotting, some corners creased). Original printed wraps (minor sunning to spines). Issued in the Macmillan Empire Library series. “This edition is intended for circulation only in India and the British Dominions over the Seas.” First reduced size edition, considerably more scarce than the first edition. Rosove 290.C1b; Renard 1397.