| Summary: | British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904 - Autograph manuscript signed ('Ernest H. Shackleton') of his poem 'L'Envoi'. This copy undated but c.1907, annotated at foot 'The last Rhyme in the South Polar Times written on the Southern Sledge Journey Dec 1902'. Condition: 1 1/2 pages, 4to, on paper with printed heading of British Antarctic Expedition 1907 (minor foxing, pin holes). Provenance: by descent from Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton to the present owner. Literature: M. and J, Fisher, Shackleton, London, 1957, pp.500-01. Exhibited: Dulwich, Shackleton, the Antarctic and Endurance, Dulwich College, 2000, no.32 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p.70). 'L'Envoi' was, as Shackleton notes here, printed at the end of the last number of the South Polar Times in August 1903, over the signature NEMO, six months after Shackleton himself had controversially been invalided home. With its invocations of 'this weird and wondrous region' dreamt of from amongst 'English meadows 'mid the scent of English flowers', it is one of the texts most profoundly representative of Shackleton's spirit as an explorer.
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