By Henry (Birdie) Bowers

Edited by Heather Lane, Naomi Boneham and Robert D. Smith
Introduction by Anne Strathie

This edition limited to 200 hand numbered copies — this being copy #51.

Cambridge: Scott Polar Research Institute, 2012. 8vo. (21.7 cm), First Edition, 95pp. including Glossary and List of Subscribers, with burgundy silk ribbon page marker. Publisher’s quarter cream colored leather on burgundy cloth ruled in bright gilt. A Fine copy of an exquisite publication.

This first publication of the journals of Henry “Birdie” Bowers by Scott Polar Research Institute is a fine letterpress production on high quality paper. Each of the 200 copies of the Journals was printed directly from lead type and quarter bound in leather. This limited edition also includes the letters written home during the Polar journey on pages torn from Bowers’ journal and notebooks.

Henry Robertson Bowers was one of the five members of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Polar party, who made a heroic attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole in March 1912. Scott had come to rely on Bowers’ meticulous planning, physical toughness and dauntless spirit. Seven months before the Pole journey, Bowers had proved himself an asset to the expedition, as one of the three-man team which survived a perilous mission to collect Emperor penguin eggs from Cape Crozier, an undertaking dubbed “The Worst Journey in the World” by fellow team member Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Throughout his time on Scott’s expedition, Bowers kept a meticulous diary, which recorded not only the events of each day, but also his own thoughts, hopes and fears. These journals have never before been published.

$375.00 - S O L D