The Worst Journey in the World

Apsley Cherry-Garrard served as the youngest member of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, and years later he set down what he had seen with unusual honesty. His account moves from a midwinter trek through total Antarctic darkness to gather emperor penguin eggs, a nightmare of frostbite and shattering cold, to the slow horror of waiting for a polar party that never came home. Published in 1922, the book refuses easy heroics and asks hard questions about how the disaster was planned and led. Its clear grief and its famous closing meditation on why men go exploring have kept it near the top of every list of great adventure writing. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.