FARTHEST SOUTH: An account of the startling discovery made by the Wise Antarctic Expedition.

First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author. Publisher's original green cloth blocked in white, black and blue. Fore-edge and bottom edge untrimmed. A very good copy, the binding square and secure with a little rubbing and marking to the boards and minor bumping to the corners. The contents, with a little cracking in places, tanning to the endpapers and the odd minor mark, are otherwise clean throughout and free from any previous owners' inscriptions or stamps.

Inscribed by the author in black ink to the front free endpaper: "Nell Morris / with best wishes / from Harold E. Gorst. / 10. Nov. 1900". An unusual polar fantasy novel by Harold E. Gorst (1868–1950) recounting the exploits of the fictional 'Wise Antarctic Expedition'. Tracing this amateur endeavour from its formulation over a glass of evening port through to its daring and hair-raising adventures on the ice, the plot pivots around the apparent discovery of a mysterious, unknown people - the 'Antarcticlanders'. Clearly drawing upon previous polar voyage narratives, it was published just a year before Robert Falcon Scott set out on his Discovery Expedition, the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier, the latter of which is referred to in the novel's opening as "the most important expedition to the South Pole" to date. A scarce title, especially so signed. Only three copies listed on Copac (BL, Cambridge, Oxford), Worldcat reveals two more copies in Australian institutions; apparently no copies in North American libraries. (Antarctic Bibliography, 23-50.67; Reginald, 06145)