ID 794492
Lot 67 | [BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1910-13] – CHARCOT, Jean-Baptiste (1867-1936)
Estimate value
£ 1 500 – 2 500
Journal de l'Expédition Antarctique Française: Le 'Français' au Pôle Sud. Paris: Ernest Flammarion, [1906].
The Terra Nova ship's library copy of the official narrative of the First French National Antarctic Expedition, presented by Clements Markham and and Lewis Beaumont. Markham, as president of the Royal Geographical Society, had initiated the first of the British expeditions of the Heroic Age with the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 on the Discovery; Beaumont had been part of the British Arctic Expedition led by George Nares in 1875-1876. As the most recent national-supported scientific expedition to the Antarctic, the present book was essential for the Terra Nova's library. Perhaps tellingly, the narrative of the French explorer has been extremely well-read, but the appendix with its tables of sceintific observations and results is mostly unopened. Conrad, p.134; Denucé 2385; Rosove 60.A1a ('uncommon'); Spence 253; Taurus 54.
Large octavo (284 x 190mm). Half-title, 29 maps and plates, mostly photographic, one folding map (prelims and half-title loose, first gathering just holding by a thread, old tape repair to half-title, a few leaves creased, some faint spotting confined to extreme margins). Contemporary half leather, original publisher's pictorial wrappers preserved on boards (very worn, lacking spine, upper cover detached, evidence of former crude tape repairs to upper cover). Provenance: Terra Nova ship's library (bookplate of the British Antarctic Expedition signed by Clements Markham and and Lewis Beaumont) – by descent from Edward 'Teddy' Evans.
After school career marked by fighting and truancy, the teenage Teddy Evans found the perfect outlet for his boundless physical energy and adventurous disposition in the Royal Navy; in 1897, he was posted to the Mediterranean as a midshipman aboard the cruiser HMS Hawke, before serving aboard the HMS Repulse and the training sloop Dolphin, and in 1900 he was promoted sub-lieutenant. Evans met then-lieutenant Robert Falcon Scott while posted aboard HMS Majestic, and when Scott sailed for the Antarctic the following year, Evans petitioned Sir Clements Markham to be seconded to the SY Morning, due to follow the Discovery as a relief ship. Sailing from London in 1902, the Morning located the Discovery fast in the polar ice; the two crews met in the McMurdo Sound, with Evans among the first party to greet the Discovery's crew, and the Discovery was re-supplied, but remained trapped in the ice. The Morning was obliged to leave her there for a second winter, returning to Christchurch for a re-fit with a number of the Discovery’s crew aboard, including her third officer, Ernest Shackleton. In January 1904 the Morning returned, accompanied by the Terra Nova; the Discovery was broken free from the ice in February, and the three ships returned home. Scott named Cape Evans in recognition of Teddy Evans’ role in the relief mission and, in 1909, selected him as second-in-command of his second Antarctic expedition, which left England in June 1910, with Evans as captain of the Terra Nova. He accompanied Scott in January 1912 to within 150 miles of the pole, where he was forced to turn back, leaving Scott and the rest of the ill-fated Southern party to press on towards the Pole. Struck down by scurvy on the return, he was saved only by the devotion of his two companions, Chief Stoker Lashly and Petty Officer Crean. Following his Antarctic service, Evans had a successful naval career, serving as a commander in the First World War – during which he became a popular hero as ‘Evans of the Broke’ for his counter-attack, aboard a ship of that name, against six German destroyers that had bombarded Dover harbour – and, subsequently, as rear-admiral commanding the Royal Australian Navy, then Commander-in-Chief, Africa, before serving in the Second World War in the Norwegian Campaign, finally retiring in 1941.
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Place of origin: | Northern Europe, Western Europe, France, Europe, United Kingdom |
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Auction house category: | Printed books |
Place of origin: | Northern Europe, Western Europe, France, Europe, United Kingdom |
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Auction house category: | Printed books |
Address of auction |
CHRISTIE'S 8 King Street, St. James's SW1Y 6QT London United Kingdom | |
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Phone | +44 (0)20 7839 9060 | |
Buyer Premium | see on Website | |
Conditions of purchase | Conditions of purchase |
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