Beschreibung:

APSLEY GEORGE BENET CHERRY-GARRARD (1886-1959)
APSLEY GEORGE BENET CHERRY-GARRARD (1886-1959)
APSLEY GEORGE BENET CHERRY-GARRARD (1886-1959) The Worst Journey in the World, Antarctic 1910-1913 . London, Bombay and Sydney: R.& R. Clark for Constable & Co. Ltd, 1922. 2 vols, 8° (223 x 145mm). Half-titles, 48 plates, 6 coloured, 10 folding panoramas, and 5 maps, 4 folding. (Occasional light marginal spotting.) Original linen-backed boards, printed paper labels on spines, edges rough-trimmed (lightly soiled and rubbed, labels browned and chipped). [And:] Two autographs letters signed ('Apsley Cherry-Garrard' and 'Cherry') to Nancy Jefferys ('My dear Nancy'), Lamer Park, 5 October 1916, 6 pages 8vo , and 12 November 1917, 6 pages 8vo , with envelopes, these tipped-in on the front endpaper of vol. 1. Provenance : Nancy Jefferys (letters from the author) -- E.S. McCawley & Co. (bookseller's ticket). FIRST EDITION OF 'THE FINEST POLAR BOOK EVER WRITTEN' (Rosove), WITH TWO AUTOGRAPH LETTERS. In one, predating publication by some years, he notes: 'at present I'm writing -- unwillingly -- a book called "The Official History of Scott's Last Expedition" -- somebody had to do it'. In this letter, which includes an original drawing of the recipient by Cherry-Garrard, he writes of loosing dear friends in trench warfare and on the Queen Mary ('I think the Huns want peace alright, the blighters, but I think we are determined to give them a real hammering first'), and making his first train journey after a year of bed-rest; he discusses illnesses picked up in various travels and being invalided by the Admiralty, and recalls a pre-war visit to Yokohama with Jefferys and going ashore with her without chaperone. In the second letter Cherry-Garrard comments on the difficulty of committing the harrowing events of the Worst Journey to paper: 'the more I [write] the more convinced I am that I can't write a word that anybody will ever read with pleasure'. Conrad p.173; Rosove 71.A1 ('Uncommon.'); Spence 27. (4)