Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922)
Details
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922)
A collection of cut signatures and autograph fragments, comprising:
60 signatures, of which 53 on fragments of letters, three with payment instructions on fragments of bills, one on a Paymaster's Advance for 1000 roubles, Murmansk, 31 January 1919, one on a diary page, and two on otherwise blank leaves with printed heading of 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907';
6 other autograph fragments, of which two cut from letters (one torn in three), one a transcribed poem, one a list of Russian vocabulary (on silk-backed endpapers extracted from a notebook), two on paper with B.A.E. 1907 heading;
together with 14 unused sheets of writing paper, with printed headings of 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907' (5), 'G.H.Q. Murmansk' (2, in a pad), 'Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition' (2), 'S.Y. Endurance', 'Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires' (3), '14 Milnthorpe Rd, Eastbourne', with three envelopes, and five facsimile signatures; 88 items in total.
PROVENANCE:
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), and thence by descent.
A number of the autograph fragments contain evocative phrases. A fragment of a letter (torn in three), bears one of Shackleton's most famously resonant poetic quotations: 'Never the lowered banner Never the lost endeavour'. Another, presumably from Shackleton's tense wait between his epic arrival in South Georgia and the eventual rescue of the remainder of the Endurance party from Elephant Island, bears the sentence 'I pray God I get these men safely out of their icy home'. Another contains a reference to 'hold[ing] things together in long continued strain like the Antarctic days'. A verse quatrain quoted from a Daily Mail leader refers to 'the birth/Of dreams of soul upon a soulless earth'. One of the fragmentary bills is dated 27 November 1914, and lists a quantity of wood screws and two screw bolts used for repairs or reprovisioning of the Endurance in Grytviken, South Georgia, a few days before her departure for the Antarctic. The Paymaster's Advance and a list of Russian vocabulary may be related to Shackleton's posting in Murmansk with the North Russian expeditionary force in the winter of 1918-1919.
A collection of cut signatures and autograph fragments, comprising:
60 signatures, of which 53 on fragments of letters, three with payment instructions on fragments of bills, one on a Paymaster's Advance for 1000 roubles, Murmansk, 31 January 1919, one on a diary page, and two on otherwise blank leaves with printed heading of 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907';
6 other autograph fragments, of which two cut from letters (one torn in three), one a transcribed poem, one a list of Russian vocabulary (on silk-backed endpapers extracted from a notebook), two on paper with B.A.E. 1907 heading;
together with 14 unused sheets of writing paper, with printed headings of 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907' (5), 'G.H.Q. Murmansk' (2, in a pad), 'Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition' (2), 'S.Y. Endurance', 'Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires' (3), '14 Milnthorpe Rd, Eastbourne', with three envelopes, and five facsimile signatures; 88 items in total.
PROVENANCE:
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), and thence by descent.
A number of the autograph fragments contain evocative phrases. A fragment of a letter (torn in three), bears one of Shackleton's most famously resonant poetic quotations: 'Never the lowered banner Never the lost endeavour'. Another, presumably from Shackleton's tense wait between his epic arrival in South Georgia and the eventual rescue of the remainder of the Endurance party from Elephant Island, bears the sentence 'I pray God I get these men safely out of their icy home'. Another contains a reference to 'hold[ing] things together in long continued strain like the Antarctic days'. A verse quatrain quoted from a Daily Mail leader refers to 'the birth/Of dreams of soul upon a soulless earth'. One of the fragmentary bills is dated 27 November 1914, and lists a quantity of wood screws and two screw bolts used for repairs or reprovisioning of the Endurance in Grytviken, South Georgia, a few days before her departure for the Antarctic. The Paymaster's Advance and a list of Russian vocabulary may be related to Shackleton's posting in Murmansk with the North Russian expeditionary force in the winter of 1918-1919.
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