SHACKLETON (ERNEST)


The Heart of the Antarctic, being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909, 2 vol., FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on front free endpaper "To Catherine Eckstein from her friend Ernest Shackleton the author. Dec 1909", and with a 4-line verse quotation below, half-titles, frontispieces and numerous plates (some colour, some double-page), illustrations, folding panorama and 3 folding maps in pocket at end of volume 2, errata slip, occasional spotting, publisher's pictorial cloth stamped in silver, t.e.g., others uncut, 2 slight nicks to spine heads, 4to, William Heinemann, 1909
|"THE VAST AND GOD-LIKE SPACES/THE STARK AND SULLEN SOLITUDES THAT SENTINEL THE POLE": INSCRIBED BY SHACKLETON TO CATHERINE ECKSTEIN, with a version of the well-known third verse of Robert Service's poem 'The Lure of Little Voices':"They are wanting me they're haunting meThey are whining and they're whimpering as if each one had a soulThey are calling from the wilderness, the vast and godlike spacesThe stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole"Catherine Eckstein was the wife of Sir Frederick Eckstein, the de Beers diamond magnate, and two days after his return to London she was the first to host a dinner for Shackleton. It took place at their house on Park Lane on 14 June 1909, and was a lavish affair: "A green and blue gauze were put together, to look like the sea, and between the folds fishes were placed. On the top of this a large sheet of plate glass was laid, edged around with seaweed. In the centre was a model of the Nimrod made entirely of flowers, the ropes done with white heather and a Union jack flying from the topmast" (The Morning Post, 17 June 1909, quoted by Roland Huntford, Shackleton, 1985).Provenance: Catherine Eckstein (née Mitchell, died Manaus, Brazil, l935); Sir Bernard Eckstein (noted collector, 1894–1948); his sale, Sotheby's, 24 January 1949; private collection.