Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961) - photo 1
Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961) - photo 2
Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961) - photo 3
Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961) - photo 4

Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961)

Lot 96
11.12.2024 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1349715
Lot 96 | Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961)
Estimate value
£ 30 000 – 40 000
Arthur Edward Harbord (1883-1961)
'The voyage of the "Nimrod" to the Antarctic, and return. British Antarctic Expedition 1907': five typed transcripts of Harbord's journals and four photograph albums, 1907-1909
The journals comprise:
Journal for 1 January - 23 February 1908, typescript in blue ink, emendations and cancellations in manuscript, title and 27 pages, 4to, single-spaced, numbered 1-28 (lacking p.2), with two transcripts of the same, the first up to 9 February, typescript in purple ink, lightly revised, 13 pages, folio, single-spaced, numbered (lacking p.9), the second up to 5 February, typescript in black ink, extensively revised, 36 pages, 4to, double-spaced, numbered (lacking pp.13-14);
Journal for 20 December 1908 - 5 March 1909, typescript in purple ink, occasional cancellations and emendations, 60 pages, 4to, double-spaced, numbered, green paper covers, with a transcript of the same up to 26 December 1908, typescript in black ink, four pages, 4to, double-spaced, numbered 1-6 (lacking pp.3-4);
with four related manuscripts, comprising: 'A Pedestrian Tour', typescript in purple ink, beginning 'The morning of June 18th, 1908. filled us with disappointment', one page, folio, single-spaced; a single manuscript leaf, a fragment of a description of life in winter quarters, on paper with printed heading of 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907'; 'Copy of [Aeneas Mackintosh's] Diary of Journey from Cape Bird to Cape Royds', 3-9 January 1909, typescript in blue ink, 18 pages, 4to, numbered 1-19 (lacking p.10, imperfect at end), with a possibly related leaf, unnumbered; and a typed transcript of the same (dated 1963).

together with: 4 photograph albums compiled by Arthur Harbord, comprising 262 photographs and 11 postcards relating to the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907-09, including one of Scott's Discovery at Lyttelton, (one album also containing numerous later photographs taken by Harbord), the photographs including scenery on the voyage south, the hut at Cape Royds and environs, and portraits of members of the expedition including Ernest Shackleton, Frank Wild, Ernest Joyce, Aeneas Mackintosh, William Roberts, and others.

Provenance: By descent from Arthur Edward Harbord to the present owner.

Vivid journals and photograph albums of Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition. Harbord was second officer and navigator on Nimrod, becoming chief officer on the return voyage. His journals are a vivid description of incidents in the shipboard part of the expedition, beginning with the Nimrod's departure from Lyttelton and the miseries of the voyage south ('Really the movements of the Nimrod are beyond even the most fertile imagination'), culminating in the arrival in the pack ice, and the first view of the Barrier: 'It appeared first in the shape of a mirage, and up above the horizon we could see that towering wall of ice which guards the secrets of the South from ships'. Once established at McMurdo Sound, Harbord recounts the amusements of the first encounters with penguins, quoting a turn of phrase by Aeneas Mackintosh, 'If you see a man in evening dress in a large ball-room, who has just become the possessor of the startling news that his braces have broken, and is hurriedly making for the nearest door, there you have the penguin walking', and the various incidents of the unloading, including the accident which led to the loss of Mackintosh's eye. The first journal ends mid-phrase on 9 February. The second journal opens with the Nimrod's sighting of pack ice on her return south at the end of 1908, and recounts the difficult 'game of ice navigation' on the return to McMurdo Sound, as well as the departure and belated return of Mackintosh's sledging trip to Cape Royds (a miniature epic described in the extracts from Mackintosh's journal included in the lot). From late January onwards, the journal is much concerned with the anxious wait for the return of Shackleton and the Southern Party, and the successful recovery of Edgeworth David and his Northern Party ('The Professor was as one dazed, and all of them had suffered greatly from the terrible ordeals through which they had gone Mawson's words were very expressive as he saw a piece [of] cake on the side board. He put out his hand for it and uttered the two words "My God"'). A final, long entry on 5 March recounts the dramatic last-minute sighting a week previously of Shackleton and Wild from the Southern Party, just as dispositions were being made for leaving a relief party to wait for them at Hut Point, and the frantic preparations for departure; the journal ends mid-sentence as Nimrod begins to fight her way out of the pack ice.

Harbord's navigation workbook for the expedition is in the SPRI, MS 483; the present transcript journal is cited by Riffenburgh (2005); Harbord's original journals are untraced.
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