Books - Chapman - Watkin's Last Voyage - with linked

Published 1934 AD. Chapman, F. Spencer, Watkin's Last Expedition, introduction by Augustine Courtauld, Chatto and Windus, London; xv pp. introduction, 290pp. text, maps, 48 black and white plates; original green cloth hardback; review cutting from The Times Literary Supplement, pasted inside front cover; inked dedication 'To S. A. Courtauld from his son August November 1934' to free end paper; ink manuscript letter tipped in before half title on printed Bateman's letterhead: 'Jan 5 35. Dear Courtauld, My best thanks for the Watkin's Expedition. It's a wonderful book and your boy's foreword, in tone & temper & workmanship matches it. Is there any more by him (unsigned) in the volume. / The cold never appealed to me and that is why I look at the experiences of the Northern Explorers as shivering - not gibbering - lunacy. Give me deserts as the worst. / I liked his quotation at the end: but he ought to have gone on to the next four lines requiquam deus - to vada. / Ever sincerely / Rudyard Kipling'; ink manuscript extended Latin quotation to p.xv (unsigned but by S. A. Courtauld; it is this quotation to which Kipling refers in his letter; from Horace, Odes I, iii, 21-24"). 1.0 kg, 24 x 17cm (9 1/2 x 6 3/4"). Property of a London lady; by inheritance. F. Spencer Chapman (1907-1971) was part of the group of young English polar explorers who shared in the expedition of Watkins and others; in later life, he became known for mountaineering in the Himalayas. Samuel A. Courtauld (1876-1947) and Augustine (1904-1959), father and son; Augustine (usually known as August) was one of the select group of young polar explorers of the period and accompanied Gino Watkins on his last expedition; his father endowed the Courtauld Institute of Art. Henry George 'Gino' Watkins (1907-1932) was recognised as one of the foremost and most promising of the young English polar explorers, especially in Greenland; sadly, he died at the early age of 25, during his last expedition; Augustin Courtauld and F Spencer Chapman accompanied him, leaving England in 1932; the Watkins Range is named after him. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), poet, author and journalist, was born in India and will forever be remembered for his stories and tales of that region, written for both adults and children; these include the poem 'If' and the stories of 'Kim', 'The Jungle Book', 'The Just-So Stories', 'The Man Who Would be King' and many others; some of his works have been adapted for radio, television and film; he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 (the first English-language writer to receive the award, at the very young age of 41"). His home at Bateman's in Sussex (from 1902 until his death) was left to the National Trust and is today a museum in his memory; although somewhat a controversial figure in India today, a museum was founded in 2007, at the place of his birth in Mumbai.
Condition Report: Good condition; paper for Kipling letter browned. A good and very rare association copy of an important polar exploration work, with added cachet of the laudatory Kipling letter.