POLAR EXPLORATION: The Heroic Exploits
BEAU RIFFENBURGH Book Number: 71504 Product format: Hardback
Published in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society, this superbly produced book gets the reader so close to the excitement and terror of early polar exploration that you can almost feel the icy blast as you open each page. What is remarkable about men like Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton, other than their outstanding individual accomplishments, is that they are but a handful of a much larger group of men who, in that brief, intense period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, set out to explore and conquer our planet's poles, so that they would no longer be marked "terra incognita" on the globe. The book takes us chronologically through man's attempts on each pole, beginning with the first sightings of Antarctica and attempts to find the Northwest Passage to Asia over the uncharted wastes of the high Canadian Arctic, to Shackleton's Endurance expedition with its astounding rescue of the crew and the age of powered flight in the polar regions. As well as being absolutely jam-packed with photos and maps, the book offers much more in the form of 14 removable facsimile documents of immense historical importance. These include journals kept and sketches made by explorers, ship's logs, letters, ship's plans, Amundsen's diary (with translation at the back) and Scott's diary, found by a search party a year after his death. It tells in Scott's own hand the self-sacrifice of Capt. Oates, and the last entry made in a faltering hand on 29 March 1912 "For God's sake look after our people" truly brings tears to the eyes. Colour, sepia and b/w throughout, a magnificent work to treasure. 64pp, 11½"×10".
Published price: $29.95
Bibliophile price: £8.00
