The Heart Of The Antarctic Being The Story Of The British Antarctic Expedition 1907 - 1909 By E. H Shackleton, C.V.O. 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., Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott 1909, a first American edition set in two volumes, with a copyright date of 1909 and “Published November 1909” on the copyright page.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874 - 1922) was an Anglo-Irish explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic and was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. During the Nimrod expedition of 1907 to 1909, he and three companions came within 100 miles of the South Pole before turning back under emergency conditions. Shackleton decided to turn back rather than risk the lives of his men. Another group in Shackleton’s party reached the South Magnetic Pole for the first time, and a third surveyed the mountain ranges west of McMurdo Sound. Shackleton was greeted with a hero's welcome and this narrative was enthusiastically received all over the world, and he was subsequently knighted for his achievements.
After the race to the South Pole ended in December 1911, when Roald Amundsen finally reached the pole, Shackleton turned his attention to crossing Antarctica by sea. To this end, he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which took place between 1914 and 1917. Disaster struck the expedition when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could land. The crew escaped by camping on the sea ice until the ice disintegrated, then by launching lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and South Georgia Island, a voyage of about 720 nautical miles (830 statute miles) over a stormy ocean, and Shackleton's most famous exploit.
In 1921, he returned to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, but died of a heart attack while his ship was moored in South Georgia. At his wife's request, he was buried there. The wreck of Endurance was discovered just over a century later, and in 2002, Shackleton was voted eleventh in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Both volumes are 3/4 bound, with five raised bands, gilt titles and gilt devices in six gilt-ruled compartments, with Lippincott at the bottom of the spine, marbled covers and marbled endpapers, the half-title, then Shackleton’s portrait on the frontis page of the first volume, a page dedicated to his wife, a five-page preface, a list of contents and illustrations for Volume I, including six color plates, with 365 pages of text, including uncut pages, and all the edges are gilt. There are 450 pages of text in the second volume, including an appendix and an index at the rear, and three fold-out maps in the accordion-type binding case at the end. Two of the three are colored maps, and the second is in black and white.
The first map is a General Map showing the Explorations and Surveys of the Expedition, the second map shows the Route and Surveys of the South Magnetic Polar Party, and the last map shows the Route and Surveys of the Southern Journey Party taken between 1908 and 1909. The first and last maps are in great condition, while the second map folds out to display a panorama of the Route of the South Magnetic Polar Party, and it has creases at the top and bottom of the panorama.
Both volumes are 8vo. and measure 10 1/8 x 7 1/4 in. wide, and they are clean and bright and securely bound throughout, and this set is an important account of Ernest Shackleton and his expeditions to the Antarctic and the South Pole.