Bonhams 1793 : KOETTLITZ (REGINALD) - SOUTH POLAR TIMES SHACKLETON (ERNEST HENRY), LOUIS C. BERNACCHI and APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD, editors. South Polar Times, 2 vol. only, PRESENTATION COPY TO REGINALD KOETTLITZ, LIMITED EDITIONS, Smith, Elder & Co., 1907

SHACKLETON (ERNEST HENRY), LOUIS C. BERNACCHI and APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD, editors. South Polar Times, vol. 1-2 (of 3), FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY TO REGINALD KOETTLITZ, with variant wording to limitation leaf (substituting the words 'This Copy is No.' with 'Presentation Copy') and two letters to Koettlitz pasted in at front of volume one (a typed letter signed by John Scott Keltie at the Royal Geographical Society, and a letter signed "Smith Elder"), titles and text printed in red and blue, numerous plates and illustrations throughout (many chromolithographed, some mounted) after Herbert Ponting, Edward Wilson and others, publisher's blue cloth gilt, upper covers with colour pictorial inset panels, g.e., spines ends rubbed, gutta-percha perished, contents working loose [Conrad, pp.111, 121 and 173; Renard 1433 and 1434; Rosove 287.A1 and 291.A2.b; Spence 1094; Taurus 42, 79; OCLC 10187942], 4to (283 x 224mm.), Smith, Elder & Co., 1907

Estimate:

£5,000 - 7,000
€5,800 - 8,200
US$ 7,500 - 11,000

Footnotes

ONE OF A SMALL NUMBER OF PUBLISHER'S PRESENTATION COPIES. The cornerstone of Antarctic literature, this work reproduces the original typescripts produced by members of Scott's expeditions, with fine chromolithographed illustrations (mostly after Edward A. Wilson). The first two volumes were produced over three winters between 1902 and 1903.

In the letter from Smith Elder (dated 2 July 1907), Koettlitz, then based in Darlington, Cape Colony, is informed that "by Captain Scott's instruction" he is being sent "a presentation copy of The South Polar Times." However, it appears that the volumes went undelivered, prompting John Scott Keltie, Secretary of the Royal Geograhpical Society, to write to Koettlitz some months later, on 13 September 1907, requesting him to collect his "presentation copy... lying at Cape Town, at the Post Office" (which he presumably did). Keltie also goes on to mention Shackleton having left for the Antarctic: "So far as I have seen everything has been very well organized indeed... the expedition ought to have a considerable amount of success."

Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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