MOUNTAINEERING AND ARCTIC


PONTING (HERBERT) "The 'Terra Nova' at the Ice Foot"; "The 'Terra Nova' Icebound", gelatin silver prints, each stamped "Photograph by Herbert G. Ponting. British Antarctic Expedition 1910... Copyright" on verso, marked up in blue pencil for publication (?in Kodak Magazine), each inked "Photographed by Herbert G. Ponting" in lower margin on image, 248 x 182mm., [1910, printed later]--SMYTHE (FRANCIS S.) 'The Mount Everest Expedition 1933...', AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT of an article published in the February 1934 issue of 'Kodak Magazine' (copy included in the lot), in pencil, on 25 sheets of lined paper (recto only), several corrections and deletions, held by paperclip, 8vo, [1934]; and a few other items, including 4 further images of the Arctic, and a 1927 copy of Scott's Last Expedition (group)
|Two classic photographs of the Terra Nova during Scott's ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913, together with Francis Smythe's account of the British Mount Everest Expedition of 1933, during which he climbed to the then record height of 28,120ft. A hugely influential figure in the golden age of mountaineering, "...in Himalayan climbing, and especially in the British experience of Everest in the generation between the death of George Mallory in 1924 and the successful attempt of 1953, Smythe remains the dominant and symbolic figure. By his writings he brought a love of mountain adventure into the drawing-rooms of many thousands of the unadventurous" (ODNB).Provenance: J.E. Archbald, A.R.P.S, his stamp on upper cover of the copy of Kodak Magazine (containing six of his photographs of a theatrical performance, and Smythe's article). Archbald worked for Kodak, but was also a keen mountaineer and friend of Smythe. Included in the lot is a copy of Himalayas. Winter 1945, a privately printed photographic journal of his month-long stay as a ski-instructor at the Kashmir Aircrew Mountain Centre; by descent to the present owner.