The South Polar Times.

A cornerstone of Antarctic exploration. An exact reproduction of the South Polar Times magazine originally issued during the Antarctic expeditions of Robert F. Scott.

"Once the sun goes down in the polar regions, you're in it for the long haul: five months of darkness, nothing to do and mercury the wrong side of 40. Besides winding the gramophone, giving lectures and, that British staple, dressing up as girls, the explorers of the heroic age published their own newspapers.

It was a tradition established on Arctic expeditions and enthusiastically taken up by Scott on his first trip south in 1902, when he appointed his team-mate Ernest Shackleton editor of the South Polar Times... After a well-lubricated banquet featuring noisettes d'agneau Darwinian and charlotte russe glacée à la Beardmore, Cherry presented the South Polar Times to Scott with everyone gathered around the table and a Christmas tree made from ski poles. The captain read most of it out loud, interrupted by uproarious laughter and indignant barracking" (Sara Wheeler, writing in The Telegraph, 2012).

"It has always seemed churlish to list this title under Shackleton, who only edited the first of the three volumes, for the publication arose during Scott's two expeditions. On the first of these, Shackleton was invalided home before its completion, while he was most decidedly not a member of the second Scott effort. Still, this should not detract from the publication, a lithographed facsimile of typescripts produced by members of Scott's party during three bleak Antarctic winters spent in his company" (Taurus).

Volume l (Apr. - Aug. 1902) was edited by Sir E. H. Shackleton; Volume 2 (Apr. - Aug. 1903) by L.C. Bernacchi. These volumes were published in 1907 with a preface by Scott. Volume 3 (Apr. - Oct. 1911) issued during Scott's last expedition, was edited by A. Cherry-Garrard.

First edition. 3 volumes, 4to. (28cm) Volumes 1 & 2 limited to 250 copies and volume 3 to 350 copies for sale, illustrated with 3 frontispieces, 2 folding maps, numerous illustrations, many full-page, many coloured, original blue cloth gilt with pictorial insets to upper covers, soft crease to spine vol. 1, a very attractive set.

Taurus 42 & 79; Rosove 287.A1 & 291.A2; Conrad p.121; Spence 1094.