Cheltenham in Antarctica – Biography of Edward A. Wilson, amply illustrated, correct in its quotations where Seaver took some editorial liberties. The paperback is only available used; a very very nice deluxe leatherbound edition in a slipcase can be ordered direct from the publisher.
Discovery Illustrated – A coffee-table sized treasure trove of the rarer or otherwise unavailable images depicting the whole of the Discovery Expedition (1901-04). The actual book is nicer than the image there, which is a promo leaflet and not the cover. Also available used.
Nimrod Illustrated – Same but for the Nimrod Expedition (1907-09)
Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks – Same sort of big juicy edition, but of Wilson's sketches, paintings, and observations of natural subjects in more temperate climes.
Edward Wilson's Antarctic Notebooks are also a thing (a glorious thing) but they're not presently available on the publisher's site or on World of Books.
Terra Nova Illustrated – Keep reading ...
Nonfiction bookselling is an unforgiving place. If you want to publish your research, you either have to convince a publisher that there's a market for it and tailor your output to the lowest common denominator, or publish academically where maybe a few dozen people will see it at best. The middle ground is going with a tiny independent press – even a vanity press – and hoping your book finds the people who are into the subject enough to appreciate something detailed and esoteric, with no marketing budget. This is where the real nerd gold is, but it's hard to source, often our of print, and with no economies of scale, expensive.
David M. Wilson, great-nephew of Our Bill, has been putting together books on Antarctic history – most, but not all, having to do with his predecessor – and these are full of stuff you will not find anywhere else. In order not to compromise on content or depth, he's published through a one-person outfit in the West Country which, aside from the digital printing, operates in roughly 1998. Sales are slow; neither of them are on social media and the books are too esoteric for most bookshops to stock.
David is currently working on the latest in his Illustrated series, and it's the big one – Terra Nova. Because of his unique connections with institutions and expedition families worldwide, it's going to be an assemblage of images that you likely haven't seen before – the whole point of it is to fill the gaps in the visual record, and oh boy there's some good stuff in there. (I have been occasionally consulting on Guy IDs and I can vouch for this.) But his publisher is hemming and hawing about his previous Illustrated books not selling well. Obviously Terra Nova Illustrated is going to be the most successful of the bunch (at least until he comes out with Endurance) but in order to give his publisher a little more confidence it would be great to shift some of the backlist.
As I am on social media, I offered to signal boost a link to the online shop, but whoa the website is terrible and that may explain why they're not selling anything. I have now taken the trouble to take you to the shop pages for each individual book, and also link you to new and used copies on World Of Books, which is kind enough to kick a little back to the author even on used copies. They also have a slightly more modern website.
Shipping in A.D. 2025 is not making anything easier, but polar fandom is a cooperative bunch, and it may be possible for multiple people in one country to group their orders and divide the combined shipping. This ought to work out cheaper for everyone than each person individually paying full price to ship from the UK.
Let's make Terra Nova Illustrated look like more of a commercial prospect!
A few weeks ago I was asked to contribute to a series wherein people would introduce a favourite hymn and tell why it's significant to them. The date of my presentation happened to be the anniversary of the Winter Journey, so the subject matter, and the hymn, chose itself. It will be no surprise, then, that the following gets a bit churchy; if you would rather not read it, you are welcome to turn around and do something else with your day. For my part, it was a good chance to lay out some things I've wanted to communicate for some time, but hadn't had the avenue to do so.
For the record, yes, I would like this one at my funeral too, but I hope that's far enough away that everyone will have forgotten this article by then.
This photo was taken 110 years ago today, on June 27th, 1910. These three men set out from base camp, to trek 60 miles through the deep dark cold of Antarctic midwinter. Their destination was an Emperor penguin colony, where they would collect, for the first time, eggs with embryos inside them, to learn something about the evolution of birds. Three and a half weeks later, having pulled their sledge sometimes only a mile a day, slept in frozen sleeping bags in -77° cold, and stumbled through a maze of ice cliffs in the dark, they had their eggs, and took shelter in a stone igloo roofed with a sheet of canvas.
Then a blizzard struck. They had seen many blizzards, but this one was fiercer than any of them, and after a day of hurricane-force winds, the roof of their igloo tore off. All they could do was to get deep into their icy bags and let the blizzard rage overtop of them. Sometimes they would thump each other to let the others know they were still all right, and sometimes, when the wind lowered enough to hear anything, they would sing hymns to keep their spirits up. It happened to be the 39th birthday of this party's leader, Edward Wilson, known to them by his nickname “Bill.”
I met Bill Wilson 13 years ago, and he has completely changed my life. I grew up in the rapacious 1980s, with the belief that humans were fundamentally callous and self-serving; you could try to be better than that if you wanted, but that was really all you could expect of others, especially when times got tough. Wilson single-handedly proved this wrong. He was a paragon of selflessness and generosity of spirit, and when times got tough, he only shone brighter. He showed me that we don't have to be limited by our weaker natures, and a better way to live was not only possible but achievable, if only one made the effort. Wilson's character was shaped by his profoundly spiritual Christianity, and the simple observation that if one claims to believe this, then it follows that one must behave thus. And so a lifetime of self-perfection was undertaken.
There is no privacy in the Antarctic, but his comrades were still shocked to discover, well after his death, how religious he was. Coming closer to God through knowledge of Creation was as valuable to Wilson as prayer or scripture, and his scientific work as well as his watercolours were, to him, acts of worship. His faith was not worn on his sleeve, but worked behind the scenes and came out in what he did. His sledging companion Apsley Cherry-Garrard wrote: “You must not think of Bill as a 'religious' man. ... When we were going to die on the slopes of Terror we sang hymns because they were easier to sing than La Bohème and it was a good thing to sing something. ... [W]e knew little of those deep feelings which are revealed in his letters and diaries and which were the foundations of his character. ... Whatever was the matter you took your trouble to Bill and, immediately, he dropped what he was doing, gave you his complete attention, and all his help. If you were doing your best he would do his best for you: though maybe you could not reach his standard, he was immensely tolerant of your shortcomings; he treated you as an equal even if you were not so.” [Introduction to Edward Wilson of the Antarctic, pp.xiv and xvi-xvii]
The inspiring thing about Wilson is that he didn't start out perfect. He was standoffish, anxious, judgemental, and snarky. But he saw these not as integral features of his personality, rather as faults that could be improved, and he set about doing so, with great effort, over the course of many years. He did not seek to erase himself, but rather to become a better version of himself. For him, it was a journey towards a more perfect imitation of Christ, with many setbacks and sloughs of despond, but he kept himself on that path and saw it through, even to the point of laying down his life for his friends.
Wilson was in the party with Captain Scott, who reached the South Pole in January 1912. As things started to go wrong on their return journey, he put all his time and energy into tending the ill and injured, forfeiting his own rest to do so. When, in their last camp, they were stuck in a blizzard, running out of food and fuel, Wilson and Bowers were prepared to walk 25 miles to the nearest depot and back while Scott stayed in the tent with a frostbitten foot. This would almost certainly have been suicide, but it was their only hope. The weather was too bad for them ever to set out, though, and a few days later they were facing their end. Scott wrote to Wilson's wife, “His eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the Almighty. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man – the best of comrades and the staunchest of friends.”
We tend to think of a pilgrimage as spatial: a journey from one geographical point to another. But, of course, its real purpose is spiritual – the journey transforms you; you are not the same person when you finish that you were at the beginning. The refinement of character is a lifelong pilgrimage of the soul: starting where you are, every day you put one metaphysical foot in front of the other and try to get a little closer to your ideal. Some days you get further than others, but the main thing is not to stop. So long as the spiritual journey is undertaken, one can be a pilgrim without leaving home. For many of us, Lockdown has been a pilgrimage, journeying through unfamiliar situations and confronting aspects of ourselves we have never had to face. We will none of us come out unchanged.
On the winter journey to the penguin colony, Wilson, with his long legs, set the path through the deep cold snow, and Cherry-Garrard followed literally in his footsteps. My pilgrimage has been much the same: As Christians, we are called to imitate Christ, but exactly how to get there, when one is not a first-century Jewish carpenter who is also God, is hard to figure out. Wilson, who lived in a world very much like our own, and who I'm pretty sure was fully human, is an invaluable guide. I am more grateful than I can say for every step he has placed for me in the snow.
No pilgrimage is easy, but it is always worthwhile. Cherry-Garrard survived the expedition but was traumatised by the loss of his friends. Nevertheless, his memoir ends with an exhortation that we go out and explore. “If you are a brave man you will do nothing: if you are a coward, you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, 'What is the use?' For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.” [The Worst Journey in the World, pp.577-578]
No one knows which hymns they sang in the blizzard on the slopes of Mt Terror, but one of the hymns at Cherry-Garrard's funeral was “To Be A Pilgrim.” It's about the spiritual journey through darkness and strife towards a better existence, gaining strength through hardship along the way. And it's a proper belter, so what better to sing in defiance of a howling gale? It always makes me think of Wilson and his pilgrimages, spatial and spiritual. Perhaps that's why it was chosen. I hope his story makes it meaningful to you, too.
It is all done with the thought of you in my heart and mind all the time, and I love it all.
Edward Adrian Wilson, June 1911, as quoted in Edward Wilson of the Antarctic, by George Seaver, p 237
I’m particularly irritated that I’ve already used the quotes from just before he set out on the Winter Journey, the anniversary of which is TODAY - what a lack of foresight.
He’s talking about his latest adventures in experimenting with different painting techniques here - he’s trying to get them finished BEFORE the Winter Journey, so that will do. Nice to know that, even when he’s creating some of the most beautiful artworks, he’s still getting distracted by his wife - and they say men can’t multitask!
When the autumn sledging was over, some sixteen members of the expedition were marooned at an old hut waiting for the sea-ice to form and let them sledge back to the base. It was a primitive, uncomfortable time, because the blubber stove and lamps covered everything with soot, the roof dripped badly whenever we had got the indoor temperature above freezing-point, and the food was seal meat and 'flapjacks' made from flour and water. Yet to many of that small party it was the happiest period of the expedition. As Cherry-Garrard says in his Worst Journey in the World, there was 'just enough to eat and keep us warm, no more—no frills or trimmings'. To that I would add 'There was Bill, and fewer people to share him with.'
One of the amateur painters on that expedition once showed Wilson a snow scene which he had just painted in which the snow was mostly a dead white. Wilson said, 'Is that what you really saw, white snow? It's very rare, you know.' There was an argument round the table and at last Wilson said, 'Let's go and have a look at it,' and took his friend outside. They talked for a while and on going in again, the friend told the others, 'Blow me if Bill isn't right, it's gone pinkish since I painted it.'
On the top of the berg sat about a hundred Antarctic Petrels like brown dots. They reminded me of the group of fleas one sees round the entrance of a Sand Martin's nest in the sunshine.
E.A. Wilson, 30 December 1910, as part of a rapturous description of how beautiful this iceberg was
Life is a gift that we are to use in His service….and this we are doing, thank God, and thank you, my beloved, for having made it easy and possible by your courage, and I just honour and worship you for it as I love you for yourself.
Edward Adrian Wilson, as quoted in Edward Wilson of The Antarctic, George Seaver p. 243
What I think is really important to understanding these two is *quite* how central their faith is to their relationship. It’s moments like this that really make that clear to me, and also how much she lost when her faith fell apart in the decade after his death.
I was myself never a tentmate of Dr. Bill, but I feel certain that if I had been one when a major catastrophe occurred—such as the spilling of all the evening hoosh on the floor cloth—I would have suppressed in Bill's presence even the most modestly expressed 'damn.'
Sir Charles Wright, in his foreword to Wilson’s Terra Nova diaries, 1971
Love everything into which God has put life: and God made nothing dead. There is only less life in a stone than in a bud, and both have a life of their own, and both took life from God.
E.A. Wilson, quoted in Cheltenham in Antarctica, p.117
Principles are the laws of life which each person makes for himself, and the best people are those whose principles are so strong that they resist every temptation to anything lower, yet so pliant that they readily give way to anything higher. Like a cog-wheel with a catch, they can always be screwed a turn higher and never drop to where they were before.
E.A. Wilson, from his notes teaching Sunday School at the Battersea Mission, quoted in Cheltenham in Antarctica p.73
The main thing is whether a person has the spirit of God in him, which to my mind means simply the power to love and be kind and unselfish; and many people have this in a very perfect form without professing any religious belief at all, or using any religious practices to keep it.
E.A. Wilson, quoted in Cheltenham in Antarctica, p.35
After ten years of war and many other years which are certainly not peace, we await what further destruction may be in store for us. The foundations are slipping, giving opportunity to men with loud voices, afraid only of someone with a louder voice, telling us of the glorious times which are before us if we will support them. ... In such a world, violent, angry and tired, Wilson sets a standard of faith and work. In a world which destroys itself and beauty, desperately and impotently desiring peace, he helps; as he helped down South. We want men of his knowledge, his integrity and his weight ... We have missed him ever since he died. But you must find him: his voice, it is a quiet voice, is for those who listen.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Postscript to The Worst Journey in the World, 1948
Hi! I know it's been a while since you posted it, but I was just wondering if you knew where that new picture of Bill came from? (The one titled "Last Days"?) It was super lovely to see a new one in the mix!! Thank youuuu ❤ xxx
It came up in a Google search – I’m pretty sure it’s from one of the family albums (his father kept quite the scrapbook) and so probably at The Wilson in Cheltenham where most of the family’s collection has ended up. But I don’t know what site it was from, if I even visited the site at all; more likely saw it in the search results and went NEW BILL PIC RIGHT CLICK SAVE AS before it could get away. :)
But accuracy-striving mode kicked in, so I went and did a reverse-image-search just to see, and found the perfect demonstration of exactly why I immediately save new Terra Nova images as soon as I see them:
