ARCTIC SOLITUDES
ADMIRAL LORD MOUNTEVANS
LUTTERWORTH PRESS: LONDON
1953
First edition. Signed and Inscribed.
THE name of Lord Mountevans has long been associated with polar exploration. In this book he gives a concise history of the expeditions which have ventured in search of the North-East and North-West Passages, and of the North Pole itself; from the early explorers like Davis and Hudson, whose courage and vision led them to face the Arctic weather in small sailing vessels, through the great achievements of Nansen and Amundsen to the modern conquest of the pole by air. A special section deals with the considerable but little-known Russian contribution to Arctic exploration.
Lord Mountevans has added accounts of whaling and bear hunting, and of the Eskimos who live within the Arctic Circle, whose way of life has been so radically changed by the opening up of the polar regions. Here, too, is a chapter on the work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the far north of Canada, with the true and tragic story of a lost patrol as an example of the dangers into which their duty leads them.
There is a growing interest at the present time in true stories of adventure, and this book, written by a man-who won a lasting reputation as Second-in-Command of Scott's last expedition, brings together some of the finest stories of endurance and enterprise ever told.
CONTENTS
EARLIEST EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS
THE SIBERIAN ARCTIC
FRANKLIN
THE RELIEF EXPEDITIONS
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN NORTH POLAR EXPEDITION
PEARY
NANSEN
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON
RASMUSSEN AND THE ESKIMOS
AMUNDSEN AND THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE
THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE
CONQUEST OF THE POLE BY AIR
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
22 x 14 cm. xvi + 143 pp + b/w photo plates. Map endpapers.
Very good condition. The dust jacket is from a later 3rd Impression, it is price clipped and with considerable edge wear (now in protective cover). The cloth is faded and with some foxing on the spine. Light foxing to the page edges. Signed and inscribed on the half-title page “To A. Anniss with Best Wishes for 1953. From Teddy Mountevans”. Anything signed by Mountevans is rare.
Admiral Edward ['Teddy'] Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans, KCB, DSO, SGM (28 October 1880 – 20 August 1957) was a Royal Navy officer and Antarctic explorer.
ADMIRAL LORD MOUNTEVANS is one of our ^foremost men of action, and few men are better qualified to write of adventure.
In 1896 he won the Queen's Cadetship and joined the Training ship Worcester. In 1901-02 he was qualified in navigation, pilotage, gunnery and torpedo, and was selected to serve in the first and second Antarctic Relief Expeditions, and eight years later Lieut. Evans was chosen by Captain Scott as his second-in-command, and is the last man living to have spoken to Captain Scott far away on that inland plateau in latitude 87° 35'.
In 1917, while commanding H.M.S. Broke, together with H.M.S. Swift he engaged six German destroyers, and in a fierce and victorious fight the Broke torpedoed one and rammed another before the Germans took to flight.
Between the wars the author rose from Captain of the Cruiser Carlisle to Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, and immediately on the outbreak of the last war he was appointed to the important post of Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence of London. Even then he could not be kept from adventure, for he was chosen to take secret information to King Haakon VII of Norway, and several times he crossed the frontier dressed as a peasant. In 1945 he was elevated to the peerage for his fine leadership throughout the war, and assumed the title of Mountevans from the Antarctic mountain that had been named after him.
