JOYCE, ERNEST E. MILLS. c.1875-1940.

The South Polar Trail: The Log of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. London: Duckworth, 1929.

The South Polar Trail: The Log of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. London: Duckworth, 1929.
8vo. 32 photographic plates, map in the text. Publisher's blue cloth, lettered in gilt on spine

FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on the half-title and double-signed "To My Dear Ould Skipper Foote, 'otherwise known as 'Dan,' in remembrance of the 'ould days on this Great Ocean of ours, from Joycey. Antarctic 1901-4, 1907-9, 1914-17. The Penguin of the South Pole, Joycey. London - March 21st, 1930." This is the only first-hand narrative of the Ross Sea party of Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. While Shackleton and his men in Endurance were trapped in the ice on the opposite side of the continent, the men of the Ross Sea party laboured to set depots from Hut Point to the Beardmore Glacier in anticipation of Shackleton's arrival from the Weddell Sea. Of the ten men of the Ross Sea party who wintered over, three died; these were the only deaths associated with Shackleton's unsuccessful effort to cross the continent. Joyce was on the Discovery and Nimrod expeditions, and was one of the survivors of the Ross Sea Party on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. No member of those expeditions named "Foote" is known. Rosove 188.A1.a; Spence 642.