Folio Society Hardcover

Limited to 1,000 numbered copies of which this is # 297

The 12 Volumes are in AS NEW UNREAD condition in DECORATIVE CLOTH-BOUND BOX WITH MAGNETIC CLASP

The Commentary book is in AS NEW UNREAD CONDITION

There is a very small bump to the top rear corner of the Commentary book slipcase - SEE PHOTOS

Complete in 12 volumes

This first complete facsimile has been created by the Folio Society in partnership with the Royal Geographic Society, the British Library and the Scott Polar Research Institute to honor the centenary of the death of Captain Scott and his companions.

The South Polar Times was a magazine created by members of Captain Scott’s expeditions to entertain themselves during the four months of Antarctic winter. Typed up, and illustrated with paintings, sketches and photographs, each issue was read aloud to all hands. They contain a mixture of the “grave and gay”, serious reports on the weather or fauna interspersed with cartoons songs and articles that gently poke fun at the members of the expedition. Together the material gives us an unsurpassed sense of their community: legendary personalities such as Scott, Shackleton, Wilson and Cherry-Garrand, as well as scientists and ordinary seamen, all of whom had been inspired to travel to the furthest reaches of the earth and risk their lives.

Each volume is printed in full color to match the original typewriter ribbon colors, with numerous watercolor paintings, caricatures, silhouettes, photographs and maps.

The handmade nature of the original has been carefully followed, including a tipped-in fold-out and tracing paper to protect the photographic pages.

Each issue has been reproduced with the original covers or approximate herald designs.

Pages are sewn and bound in card using the technique of “otta” binding, enabling the books to be opened flat without creasing the spines.

The books are protected within a presentation box covered with cloth and fastened with a magnetic clasp. An inset cloth label is blocked with hand-drawn titling in period style.

The set is a accompanied by a comprehensive commentary volume from the acknowledged authority on Polar publishing, Ann Savours.

Production details:

12 volumes, bound in Modigliani

Insize Neve card with Otta spine finish

Each volume is 10¾ x 8¼ inches

1,224 pages in total

Commentary volume bound in Heritage cloth, has 232 pages and measures 10¾ x 8 inches

Collected in a cloth-bound box with magnetic clasp and paper label

LIST OF TITLES: Complete in 12 volumes: 

• April 1902
• May 1902
• June 1902
• July 1902
• August 1902
• April 1903
• June 1903
• August 1903
• June 1911
• September 1911
• October 1911
• June 1912

At the start of the 20th century out of the far places of the world had been explored. Only the Polar regions, bound in ice and well-nigh impenetrable, remained to be conquered. 

Captain Scott led two expeditions to the Antarctic, in the ship Discovery in 1902 and the Terra Nova in 1911. He and his men waited out the long winter darkness, carrying out scientific research, and then used the brief summers to explore  the uncharted continent, culminating in 1911 with their ill-fated journey to the South Pole.

The South Polar Times was produced by the men of Robert Scott's two journeys to Antarctica: the Discovery expedition of 1901–04, and the Terra Nova expedition of 1910–13. (Each journey was named after the ship that took Scott's teams to Antarctica.) Regular journals on long voyages were a Royal Navy tradition and Scott was determined to keep it up. Among the boxes of cargo brought by his ships, Scott included a typewriter, reams of good quality paper and art supplies. In the end, 12 issues of the Times were produced: eight from the first of Scott's trips to the Antarctic and four from his second, ill-fated expedition.

On February 8, 1902, the steam-powered barque Discovery anchored in McMurdo Sound, carrying Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition. Its cargo included guns, axes, saws, sledges, skis, compasses, chronometers, barometers, thermometers, microscopes, telescopes, magnetographs, theodolites, fireworks for signaling, explosives for blasting through ice, a windmill to generate electricity, a balloon for aerial surveys, a set of magic tricks, a collection of theatrical costumes, a piano, a harmonium, 36 cases of sherry, 5,000 pounds of marmalade, and more than 1,500 books, 48 of them by Sir Walter Scott. 

The Discovery also carried a single typewriter, a Remington No. 7, on which Ernest Shackleton, the Third Lieutenant in Charge of Holds, Stores, Provisions and Deep Sea Water Analysis, would perform an additional and perhaps even more vital duty, as the founding editor of Antarctica’s only magazine, the South Polar Times.

It had the lowest possible circulation for any newspaper in the world. Only one copy of each edition was ever printed. Yet the South Polar Times had a readership that would bring tears to the eye of a media mogul. Every single person on the continent of Antarctica read it. For good measure, the paper also had a startlingly impressive list of editors that included polar exploration leader Ernest Shackleton as well as Apsley Cherry-Garrard, author of the travel classic The Worst Journey in the World.

By any reckoning, the paper was an extraordinary publication whose treasures can now be shared with readers by this Folio Society Limited Edition of its entire 12 issues. Each paper – which ran from 30 to 50 pages – includes photographs, features, caricatures of officers and men, whimsical observations of life in Antarctica, cartoons, weather reports and a range of breathtaking watercolours of the polar landscape – most of them works by zoologist Edward Wilson, Scott's deputy, and a painter of considerable talent.

"Wilson turns out to be an artist who was capable of some truly exquisite work," says Joe Whitlock Blundell, the Folio Society's production director. "These are some of the key high points of the South Polar Times. Wilson was clearly a remarkable artist."

Written a century ago, the papers are also intriguing historical documents in their own right, including popular music-hall songs rewritten with new lyrics; a pastiche of Walt Whitman's poetry; and an account of their own expedition as recently decoded papyrus leaves – a spoof on the great Rosetta Stone controversy.

All are marked by their jollity and would have provided a welcome diversion for the men during the long, dark austral winters. However, it is the last issue of the South Polar Times that provides the most touching copy. It was written and produced in June 1912, by which time Cherry-Garrard and the rest of the men living in the expedition hut of Ross Island knew that Scott and his four companions – Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates – were dead. Their supplies would have run out weeks earlier.

"They still produced the Times, but there is no mention of the fact that Scott and the polar team were missing. Yet their absence would been like an elephant in the room," says Blundell. "The paper has jokes in it but they fall flat.

"However, it is the weather records in that issue that are the real eye-openers," he adds. "They show that for the few preceding months, the wind and snow conditions were the worst that had been experienced for that time of year and illustrate just how unlucky were Scott and his men. As the South Polar Times reveals, they were simply caught in some of the worst weather in the world."

I recently acquired a large and interesting collection of Folio Society titles in AS NEW UNREAD condition from a collector who purchased most of them new and sealed, and displayed them in a smoke free, climate controlled home.

I will be listing these as time permits so please check back often for new listings.

Please let me know if you have questions. 

PLEASE NOTE: To be eligible for returns, all books must be undamaged and be repacked as sent.