Scott’s Last Expedition

These are Robert Falcon Scott’s own journals, published in 1913, the year after a search party found his tent. The first volume carries the Terra Nova expedition from the crowded departure out of New Zealand through winters of science and sledging to the polar march itself, and to the day in January 1912 when Scott’s party reached the Pole and saw Amundsen’s flag already standing there. The entries thin as the return march fails. The last of them, written with the food gone and eleven miles between the tent and a depot, is among the most quoted pages in English. Read it for the daily texture of the work, not only for the ending. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.