In which Anna and Judith travel to Antarctica to embark on the greatest possible adventure: publishing a book! Expect cold, dark and dismal weather, the printing press from hell and the stench of seal blubber – all wrapped up in tasty petit-pois endpapers.
Aurora Australis was the first book ever written, printed and bound in Antarctica. This rare collection of fact, fiction and poetry was self-published in 1908, at Shackleton’s hut in Cape Royds. Here’s a complete digital version of Aurora Australis provided by Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge:
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Books & links
The Heart of the Antarctic, a popular account of the expedition written by its leader, Ernest Shackleton. Published by Heinemann in 1910.
Antarctic Days: Sketches of the homely side of Polar life by two of Shackleton’s men, an informal account of daily life during the expedition, written and illustrated by James Murray and George Marston. Published by Andrew Melrose in 1913.
Nimrod: Ernest Shackleton and the extraordinary story of the 1907-1909 British Antarctic Expedition, a present-day account by Beau Riffenburgh. Published by Bloomsbury in 2004.
See images of Shackleton’s hut (from the Antarctic Heritage Trust)
Find out what was in Shackleton’s library (from the BBC)
Watch how a modern day facsimile of Aurora Australis was produced (by the Folio Society)
Photos of the hut
These photographs were published in Shackleton’s 1910 book, The Heart of the Antarctic.
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- The hut shown in summer
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- The printing press and type case iinside the hut
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- A plan showing the layout of the interior of the hut. The printing press is centre bottom. The press for illustrations is centre top
Recorded by Anna Faherty and Judith Watts. Edited and produced by Anna Faherty.
Incidental music: All She Gets From The Iceman is Ice performed by Edward M Favor, released in 1908. Sourced from the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive
Sound effects: The sound of the Antarctic katabatic wind from Stormpetrel on freesound.org
Theme music: Folk guitar music track from Dvideoguy on freesound.org | Typewriter sound effect from tams_kp on freeounds.org | Print shop sound effect from ecfike on freesound.org
Introduction
For most people, writing a book is a big challenge, even more so if you then publish it. But what if you’re doing all that in a cramped and stinky flat-pack hut? In the darkest most inhospitable place on Earth?
It’s about risk. It’s about adventure. It’s about, yeah, imagining what might be beyond and trying to communicate that to people.
I’m Anna Faherty
I’m Judith Watts
And this is Bookshapers: a show where we explore curious stories about the people and technology behind what we read.
This episode: The Sign of the Penguins
Judith
I’m already thinking, what kind of penguins? The penguin? The penguin? The only publishing penguin that there is?
Anna
So, let’s start off by… imagine it’s 1907….
Judith
Okay.
Anna
…and you’re setting off with 14 other men. They are men, obviously, on an expedition to Antarctica.
Judith
Whoa, okay.
Anna
You hope to be the first plucky men to reach the South Pole. What might you pack?
Judith
Gloves?
Anna
Good
Judith
Lots of things to keep me warm, something to keep me fed, watered, sane. Oh, do you know? Well, I would have to take a pen and paper. Something to do. Because it’s probably going to be very dark all the time. Maybe something to read, maybe something to listen to. I don’t know what I would be able to carry…
Anna
Well, obviously, you’re not carrying it single handedly, you have a big ship that’s going to take you there.
So this expedition, The Nimrod expedition, was led by Ernest Shackleton, and in his book, The Heart of the Antarctic, says “the equipping of a polar expedition is a task demanding experience, as well as the greatest attention to points of detail” – a bit like the experience and attention to detail needed to publish a book, you might say.
But anyway, the detail of what they took on this expedition… I’m not gonna list everything, but their packing list included… a wooden hut.
Judith
Shelter, yep.
Anna
It was 10m by 5.5m. It’s about the size, I think, of a triple garage if you had such a thing.
Judith
Now I know why they needed a ship.
Anna
Yes, exactly. But it was built in Knightsbridge. And then it was taken apart and then it was shipped in sections.
Judith
Flat pack.
Anna
Flat pack wooden hut, yes. They took sledges and skis, so things to get around with. They took things to keep them warm, as you said. So they took boots made of reindeer skin, mittens made of wolfskin, blankets and sleeping bags made of camel hair. They took Manchurian ponies with which to pull the sledges.
Judith
Okay, why Manchurian?
Anna
I think they’re probably quite hardy, because they’ve grown up on the steppe. And they might be small-ish. They took dogs, lots of dogs. They took – you talked about being fed and watered – they took a cooking range and food. They took canned meat, bottled fruit…
Judith
How much?
Anna
Well, a lot because they were… this was an expedition that lasted two years. So, a lot. They took things to help them find their way around like charts and watches. They took candles so they could actually see. They took a motor car and the spare parts for it because, of course, in 1907 you wanted to drive a car around Antarctica. They took a Remington typewriter. They took two Singer sewing machines, presumably to repair all those sleeping bags and stuff. They took a gramophone and apparently at some point played music on it to penguins.
Judith
That’s wonderful.
Anna
They took hockey sticks and a football. So, things to do, as you put it. And they took a library.
Judith
Okay, so this ship now is becoming really full. I’m just interested in what the size of the library might have been.
Anna
I can’t find out what was in the library. But on his later expedition, somebody’s found a picture of Shackleton’s library on the ship – in a different expedition – and they’ve worked out what all the books are. And so, if it’s anything like that other expedition, then he had everything from, like, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary to true life and fictional adventure stories, like Raffles. And they had poetry by Shelley; works by Dostoevsky. They had Baroness Orzcy detective stories.
Judith
So a bit of everything. The kind of things I’ve got on my Kindle, bizarrely. You’ve everything from encyclopaedias to genre fiction. Yeah. Okay.
Anna
And my favourite, which I think you’ll like as well, was called Perch of the Devil. And it was a Western romance by Gertrude Atherton, that The New York Times called “crude, shrill, unscrupulous and splendid”. I’d quite like to read it. Anyway, the most important thing for what we’re talking about today is that, on top of all of this, they took a printing press, along with movable type, rollers, paper, and as they described it, “other necessaries for the production of a book during the winter night”.
This book – Aurora Australis – was the first book ever written, printed, illustrated and bound in Antarctica.
Judith
Well there’s just so much about what you’ve just said, there. One, I’m thinking…. So I’m just trying to think of the size of the printing presses at that time, because I’m thinking about the ones that were before that, in the 1800s, that were massive iron with eagles, and all of these other things.
Anna
Yes, it wasn’t that massive…
Judith
So, I’m thinking this is more of a portable printing machine, but still, nonetheless, something to publish a whole book on the trip. And, so, what were they… what I was wanting to know, what they were going to publish? So I’m assuming it’s the adventures of the trip itself?
Anna
Yes, kind of. So, it turns out that writing and publishing on these kind of expeditions wasn’t an entirely new thing. So, in earlier expeditions, the men had made newspapers. So, as early as 1819, when some explorers went to find the Northwest Passage, they made a newspaper.
Judith
Funny stories in it, what might have been happening back home, letters of complaint…
Anna
On this expedition, they also made a newspaper on the ship. On the long journey south to New Zealand, they made a newspaper called The Antarctic Petrel as in the bird petrel, but all of this was designed to amuse them, because as you said, you take something to do.
Judith
But I was thinking they would just take a ready-made book. It’s quite an adventurous thing to publish, as well as kind of pitch up in the Antarctic.
Anna
Yes. So, it’s because they arrived in about February in Antarctica, in February 1908 by now. One of the team described it as one of the most inhospitable regions of the world, notorious for its blizzards. And winter set in quite soon after they arrived and winter is pretty dismal in the Antarctic.
Judith
Dark, 24 hours a day, or no visibility?
Anna
Pretty much. So, the second in command of the expedition said “the Antarctic winter with its four months of complete darkness, and its month of twilight at both ends, was indeed a testing time. There were days on end enduring blizzards, when no one left the hut, save for a natural purpose, or to feed the ponies or take meteorological observations.”
Judith
I’m sure they were all very good friends at that point.
Anna
Well… or not. It’s worth saying you could be shut in the hut for a week if the blizzard lasted that long, just leaving to do your business or feed the ponies. But a reminder that that hut was about 55 square metres. It’s about the size of an average sized studio apartment.
Judith
Got a lot of things in it. It’s got a printing press in it.
Anna
Yeah, well, it’s got 15 men in it. It’s got all those things already mentioned: the library, the cooking range, the camera equipment, the sewing equipment, and then it’s got the printing press and paper. And they even built a dark room in it so they could develop their pictures and they kept cases of bottled fruit in it. They slept in it. They held divine service in it every Sunday.
I wanna show you some pictures of it now. The first two are pictures of it in the present day, actually, but you can still see it. This hut in the middle of Antarctica.
Judith
So it does exist now.
Anna
It still exists. Yes.
Judith
It has a chimney. It just feels remote.
Anna
It is very near the southernmost active volcano in the world, Mount Erebus. You can look at the next picture. It’s a similar view.
Judith
Oh that gives you a really good sense of the depth of the snow and the darkness of the skies. I can’t even think where the ponies would… just, it’s bleak. It’s bleak. It’s… It looks like a tomb. I don’t think… I don’t think I could spend that long in it: four months.
Anna
You’ve said some of the things that they said actually. So when they were looking back at the hut as they left, you know, they’ve been in Antarctica all this time and they left, they said, it looks “hideously bleak and dismal… overhanging ice cliffs with the cruel black rocks beneath”. But have a look at the next couple of pictures…
Judith
It looks much more jolly inside it, in fact it even looks cosy. But I’m thinking there’s, I mean, there’s no windows, so presumably, the light was just, it was difficult. I’m trying to work out what is hanging up on the washing line. But it looks sort of long johns and then some kind of animal…
Anna
In this picture, it looks relatively spacious, but if we you look at the next one.
Judith
So, what are they working on there? Is it a sled?
Anna
So yeah, this is a bunch of them. This is about half of the men I think, if you count, that there’s probably about eight there, but they’re like huddled together, aren’t they?
Judith
You know what, that is really surprising because they’re actually smiling.
Anna
And they’re smoking as well aren’t they, so that’s adding to the atmosphere? So they’re working on a sled. My favourite thing that I think you might like in the back here, Judith, I don’t know if you can see but the poster there?
Judith
What does it say? I’m just looking to see what it says. Ladies corsets! How fantastic!
Anna
But yes, so there is a poster there advertising ladies corsets that is put on the wall somehow…
Judith
In that early Pirelli Calendar way that you might expect with a group of men working together. Or ironically, who knows,
Anna
So life in the hut, I would say, sounds pretty dismal. Not really the excitement that you might think of venturing into the unknown and going on this derring-do adventure. So, as well as them smoking, they burnt coal and seal blubber constantly to keep themselves warm.
Judith
So it must have smelt.
Anna
And the blubber melted apparently, and ran onto the floor. They used something called carbide to fuel some lamps. And apparently carbide, when you burn it, has a sort of nasty garlic like smell.
Judith
And I’m wondering now why they’re smiling at all in these photographs.
Anna
They’re posing probably. The hut shook and trembled every time there was a blizzard, and they felt it might get blown away. So, anyway, that’s the hut and it’s all a bit of a nightmare and even though people say it’s jolly, I like this description by the biologist on the expedition, who says “the ordinary unsweepable soil of the place, is a rich compost of all filth, cemented with blubber, more nearly resembling the soil of a whaling station than anything else I know.” So, you can just imagine the stench, and it’d be slippy…
Judith
It’s so visceral It’s just yeah, just unpleasant.
Anna
So, do you think you’d like to produce a book in that kind of environment, Judith?
Judith
That sounds about as far removed from any kind of publishing setup that I’ve ever encountered, which is mostly clean and beautiful. And, you know, paying attention to the whiteness of the paper, and all those details that I just can’t… No, I can’t imagine that at all.
Anna
So, you’ve hit upon one of the issues they had, which was keeping stuff clean. But they had lots of challenges.
Judith
Space, I can see now, would be one of them.
Anna
The way the hut was organised, obviously, it was a sort of communal area around the stove, where you could inhale all that coal and blubber. But then, each pair of… obviously Shackleton being the leader had his own bit of the hut. I think, when I say bit, the only way… there’s no walls, so the only way they were demarcated was by either blankets hung from the ceiling or the packing crates full of bottled fruit and things were piled up to make a wall. So apart from Shackleton who had his own, each pair had their own cubicle, which was about two metres by two metres square.
Judith
That’s quite small.
Anna
Yes, the typesetters’ cubicle – so the two men who typeset shared a cubicle, Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild. So, in their cubicle, they had two beds that were built from packing cases, they had a large sewing machine, they had the printing press, they had the type case, and they had all the paper, and they did all their work in that bit.
Judith
Wow, that that’s, that’s, that’s, well, that sounds like some kind of printing presses from hell.
Anna
And I should say, there was a separate press for the kind of lithographic etching kind of press for the illustrations so they were printed in a different way.
Going back to this idea of it being a very meticulously planned expedition, three people were trained before they left in order to…
Judith
Trained how to use the press? Trained how to edit, and put it together?
Anna
Yes, all of the above. So, two people were trained in kind of setting up the press, inking the plates, sorting out the type, and actually printing the paper. And then one person was trained, who was an artist, was trained in making kind of etched prints, and printing those.
Judith
Already, I’m thinking though, I mean, does ink freeze? I don’t know, does it have a…? Just, I mean, these things are difficult enough to get right anyway, in printing, And the thought of having to do it in this environment is just extraordinary.
Anna
So, you’re right again. So you’ve already mentioned the cleanliness thing, and they had a real issue that, like, if they dropped anything on the floor, it would be completely spoiled. And if they, even if they were just holding a piece of paper, because there’s all these lamps and fires and stuff there, you know, dust would settle on it. So, that was all a real nightmare. But ink was probably the biggest nightmare. So, on the way on the ship, they were trying to make sure the ink didn’t freeze on the ship. And they sort of put it near the stove on the ship or something. But even then one bottle of ink froze and completely burst its bottle on the ship.
Judith
Interesting. I just love the idea of it popping out of a bottle.
Anna
It’s like some kind of fantastical creature of black ink coming out. But when they were in the hut, then you’re right, the ink was either normally too cold – and, which made it really sticky, even if it didn’t freeze, it went sticky. Or they then had to warm it by a candle. So they put the ink on a plate and put a candle under the plate and heated it, but then if they heated it too much, it got too hot and was too fluid. So, they even say in the preface that, you know, not all the pages will look the same, will have the same quality of inking because the inking was just a real challenge. So, there’s the challenge of like, laying out the type and stuff if you’re not a professional typesetter. And it’s cold, and you might have kind of fingers that aren’t very dexterous or whatever. But that wasn’t so much to do with the location that was more to do with the fact that they weren’t expert. But the ink was a challenge because of the location, the keeping the paper clean was a challenge because of the location, it’s also worth saying they had three weeks training, and at the time, to be a printing apprentice, you would be apprenticed for seven years.
Judith
That’s what I was thinking. It’s…, you really have to know what your doing. There’s so much involved in it. It speaks a lot to Shackleton’s idea, that he, the fact that he spoke about it in the preface, or they wrote about it, that it had to be, you know that they were pointing out the flaws.
Anna
Yeah, I mean, there’s one particularly frustrating day that I’ve discovered, which is: they left the candle burning underneath the ink and the inking roller was on the same plate. And they got called away. And when they came back, they found that the roller – so, obviously what you use to get the ink and then put it on top of the type ready to print – the roller had melted. And of course, it’s the only one they had, and you can’t pop out to the shops or order one from Amazon, so they had to make a new roller somehow. But despite all these things, Shackleton himself says “they plotted ahead steadily”. And apparently after two or three weeks of doing all this, they could print two pages in a day.
Judith
This is crazy, because I mean, just to think about this expedition as one thing, but to actually be publishing something. This is adventure enough to even to try and just do this let alone what else they were trying to do.
Anna
Exactly. This is a self-publishing adventure.
Judith
This is a self-publishing adventure. Madness. It’s delicious.
Anna
Even the artist doing his best he couldn’t… he couldn’t work when there was any vibration in the hut. Of course, you’ve got these 15 Men, you’ve got the stoves, you’ve got the sewing machines, you’ve got the darkroom, so he had to work really early in the morning because apparently that’s when there was least vibration, presumably because people were still in bed. And even then, he’d frequently just do everything right and do his prints and it just wouldn’t come out. And he could do like ten or more really bad prints until one, he got one good one to put in the book.
Judith
Presumably they were black and white or whatever strange colour they came out after it…
Anna
They are black and white. Although the frontispiece is coloured. You can maybe see the frontispiece. Actually there’s two colours. It’s like the copyright page effectively.
Judith
How fun, “printed at the sign of the penguins by Joyce and Wild”. Oh, it’s got latitude and longitude. Antarctica. That’s, that’s beautiful.
Anna
And it’s got something else in colour.
Judith
It’s got the trademark. It’s got oh is that the logo?
Anna
So what does the logo look like?
Judith
It’s two penguins. It’s penguins side by side.
Anna
So, it’s like a penguin imprint almost 30 years before Allen Lane actually launched Penguin Books.
Judith
“Published at the winter quarters of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907”. It’s got such detail. “Illustrated with lithographs and etchings by George Marston”. It’s beautiful.
Anna
So that’s the first frontispiece. And then if you go on to another picture…
Judith
It’s a book! It’s a real book!
Anna
I should say, that if anyone listening wants to share Judith’s absolute joy in this moment, and take a look at the book, you can go to our website, bookshapers.co.uk, and under this episode you’ll find a fully digitised copy.
Judith, if you look at the title page now, you’ll see an illustration of Aurora Australis, which is the Southern lights.
Judith
But it’s a beautiful blue.
Anna
Yes,
Judith
A really beautiful blue.
Anna
But is it blue, just because that’s the only ink they had? I don’t know.
Judith
That’s what I was thinking. So, I’d be really interested. I would have to find out more now.
Anna
That would be my guess that they might have only had blue, red and black.
Judith
Can I ask? So it was fiction? Well, so it was a story about the adventure or actually just stories?
Anna
It is a mixture of things. So, there’s about ten pieces. Three are poems. They are more or less about reality, but with a slightly, maybe metaphorical or fantastical, slant. Seven kind of prose pieces. One is an out and out fantasy. It’s like a fantasy story about explorers in a land called Bathybia. Which is basically the south pole, which bear in mind, no one has yet reached. And so this person has written a story about explorers getting to the South Pole and finding it covered in luxuriant plant life, and encountering giant ticks who attack them, and having giant bouncy mushrooms that you can kind of use as stepping stones. So that’s a real out there fantasy.
Judith
And they were near, but yet so far away from that.
Anna
Yes. And then the rest are.. there’s one that’s a very scientific kind of description of microscopic creatures that live in the Antarctic sea. And there’s also an encounter with a talking penguin. So, they’re, they kind of like, fantasy, but grounded in the situation they’re in.
Judith
But that’s not what I was expecting you to say at all. I thought it was going to do something very important and scientific and the reason of taking the press was to report on anything they’d found that was kind of…, but now it’s the equivalent of capturing the singing or playing records to penguins and fantasy. It’s really extraordinary.
Judith
Do you know did each of the men contribute something to it or did some of them just write and the others edit and make the book happen?
Anna
So, there were 15 men in the exhibition, eight of them contributed plus the illustrator, so that’s nine. So, they didn’t all contribute, there was no, there was no requirement to do so. Shackleton as expedition leader was the editor. He wrote the preface, but I’m not sure how much other editing he did.
Judith
Why were they there? They must have been… some of them must have been at their wit’s end and wondering why they’d even attempted this.
Anna
Well, this is the expedition that famously had this advert that you might have heard, which said, which was trying to recruit people to participate, which said “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success”.
Judith
I mean, “safe return doubtful”. I mean, would that excite some people to go? Or…? Clearly because they signed up for little wages, then, and presumably, all the, all the glory? So, what was it they were hoping to achieve?
Anna
So, Shackleton actually wrote about this himself and he said, “men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons. Some are actuated simply by love of adventures. Some have the keen thirst for scientific knowledge. And others, again, are drawn away from the trodden paths by” – you’ll like this, Judith – “by the lure of little voices, the mysterious fascination of the unknown”.
Judith
That, that I understand: the little voices. And I can see why they were drawn. I’m wondering, do you know if any women pitched up to the advertisement? Or responded in any way?
Anna
I do not know. And I have to say that that advertisement is quoted everywhere, but there’s now some doubt about whether it actually ran. But no, I imagine at that time that women were not thought capable of such things. Women did give money to the expedition to…
Judith
To get rid of their husbands for a while.
Anna
Well, no. There’s a very, there’s a lovely old maiden, wealthy maiden lady called Elizabeth Dawson Lambton…
Judith
Who also heard little voices, or had a spirit of adventure, but potentially couldn’t go herself?
Anna
Well, she couldn’t go, at least at this point, because she was in her 60s. But she was known as Old Liz to her servants. And she was actually the first donor to this expedition and she gave a thousand pounds, which today would be about 100,000 pounds.
Judith
She must really have wanted to know what was out there.
Anna
Yeah, so I think she had those little voices but couldn’t go.
Judith
Yeah, so I’ve reached the preface. I actually just want to read it now.
Anna
We could do that, but it might take you a little while.
Judith
Oh and the little note. It’s lovely. Ah, the contents list. It’s so professional.
Anna
I bet you’ve never sounded that kind of cutesy about a contents list, in your life, Judith.
Judith
No, no. Well, because well, just the titles are fascinating. The Ascent of Mount Erebus. So that’s the one that you said was quite…
Anna
Yeah. So that was the first ever ascent. So that is an account of them climbing it. Yes. And it’s an active volcano.
Judith
But presumably midwinter night and…
Anna
Midwinter night is a poem.
Judith
This wasn’t the thing that you letter-pressed for me?
Anna
It was.
Judith
I knew it. I knew it as soon as I saw the longitude.
Anna
So, we do have a connection about this that you didn’t even realise,
Judith
We do. Oh, I feel quite emotional now.
Anna
So, I mean, I found it difficult enough to typeset that in a day, and they were doing it in the cold and stinky world, and probably wearing gloves and all that. And then they were printing it as well and then…
Judith
Because I remember you saying what a labour of love it was. There was something about the process that it was taking a very long time.
Anna
So this was like a one, one day or maybe two day letterpress course. And you could decide to print wherever you liked. And obviously, if you printed a prose thing, you would have had to justify it. But it would have at least been all the same, you know, you wouldn’t have had indents and stuff, but because it was a poem, it was all indented, and each second line was indented and stuff. So, there was a huge amount of spacing, and then trying to make sure the spacing was the same in each of the lines below and stuff. So, I set myself quite a difficult task by doing a poem, I think. So, that was one thing that I do remember that the spacing and putting the tiny little pieces of lead in. And obviously, it’s something you don’t really think about when you’re using Word or anything that how you format by putting individual tiny slivers of lead in to create the perfect spacing.
Judith
So, I think the fact that they chose to do lots of different types of content in there, so they’ve got the poems and the prose, and the illustration, just…
Anna
Set themselves a challenge.
Judith
They set themselves a challenge.
Okay, I’d read it. Just that list of titles.
Do you think they read from the book to each other then when it was produced? Or did they have, or is that the point when they had to go home?
Anna
There’s no record of that. But who knows.
Judith
I like the idea that they might read to each other because storytelling just around that fire would seem the best thing to do. They might as well enjoy the book as a finished thing
Anna
Would you like to read a sample from it now? As if we were sitting around that stove? Because I have a verse from a poem here. It’s the poem called Southward Bound.
Judith
In a solitary hut, on the lonely isle, beneath the smoke capped height, hemmed in by the ice that grips us awhile, we wait, in the long, dark night.
Anna
Excellent. So that’s just capturing that moment of them sitting in the hut for four months on their own. I mean 15 of them, but on their own otherwise.
Judith
That’s actually made my skin have goosebumps.
Anna
So, what’s interesting about – in terms of reading it – is that they did print, as I said, about 100 copies. And then they bound about 25 to 30. And there was some talk, I think, about them selling it, but they didn’t sell it. So, they basically came back and gave them to people. Bit of a spoiler alert that they obviously came back.
Judith
They didn’t have to resort to burning them? Can you imagine? That after four months, you run out of fuel, and things are not looking good?
Anna
No. Well, that’s also interesting, because they did make the binding out of wood. So that would have been something they might want to…
Judith
So, just trying to think how that would work. How do you sew with wood?
Anna
So, they actually made it out of Venesta plywood, which was what the packing chests were made of. So obviously, all this stuff that they brought out was all in this Venesta packing chests…
Judith
That’s very, very well thought through meticulous planning.
Anna
The binding was done by the motorcar mechanic. So he was like the kind of ingenious engineer, and he, he took this plywood from the boxes, sanded it down, and then you’d have two pieces of plywood. And then he’d join two pieces of plywood together with a spine, which he made from leather. And the leather was taken from the horse harnesses for the ponies. And then they, then he used green silk cord to hand sew the pages to the leather. So, you’re not sewing to the wood you’re sewing to the leather, which is this kind of hinge and, and bit in the middle.
What I find fascinating about the fact that it’s made from these crates is that, of course, these crates had the branding printed on them of what was in them. So, and that remained on the inside of, of… So he used the kind of inner side of the cases for the outer binding, but then the inside – so a bit like having endpapers – often had stencilled print of what had been in the cases.
Judith
So, I’ve got to ask now, what had been in the cases and is there a picture of it?
Anna
I don’t actually have a picture, but I can tell you that a copy that ended up with Rudyard Kipling had petit pois stencilled on it.
Judith
No!
Anna
One that ended up with King Edward the Seventh said mock turtle Soup. Others that are in different libraries around the world now – libraries and archives – had beans, Julienne soup, or stewed kidneys on them.
Judith
Well, one, I have to say they actually, they had quite a good diet then? It’s quite, quite a nice selection of food there. Oh, how lovely. This is just… They’re like big boy scouts making things.
Anna
They’re like, strange, tasty endpapers and they are unique to every individual version of the book.
Judith
That’s fantastic. But I love that, because it’s… This is, when you say limited edition, this is… This is as rare and special as it gets, isn’t it?
Anna
If you were lucky enough to get one of these books, when you came back, it had been to Antarctica, almost to the South Pole, at a time… I mean, obviously, most of us still haven’t been to Antarctica, but now it’s possible to go to Antarctica. But at the time, there was no way a normal person could ever have gone to Antarctica. So, it’s a bit like when you get something that’s been into space, there’s something – the book itself has travelled.
Judith
Yes, it’s about part of its materiality. It’s part of the material culture. So, this idea of it having been there. So, that’s the point of it not being a digital version, but being a published printed version, is that it’s actually imbued with sense of place and location.
Anna
It could be imbued with smell. So rather than smelling like a book, maybe Aurora Australis smells of burnt seal blubber?
Judith
Ooh, it probably did.
Anna
If you could… If you could publish a book from anywhere you wanted to Judith, where would it be?
Judith
Oh, well, do you know, I’ve always wanted to publish under the sea.
Anna
Oh, my word.
Judith
I just think of sitting on the sand at the bottom of the ocean, below the waves, and printing something out, making a book.
Anna
So, you don’t mean under the sea as in a submarine. You mean, actually in the water,
Judith
I mean in the water. But now you’ve said in a submarine would be quite interesting.
I feel an adventure coming on.
Anna
What, where we publish in different places?
Judith
Where we go and get one of those machines and do it.
There is one thing I want to know…
Anna
Yes.
Judith
Where could I actually go and see a copy?
Anna
In London, you can go and see two copies in the National Maritime Museum in the Caird Library. In fact, that’s where I discovered it. So, I went on a sort of open session there and they had it on display. And they’ve got one bound copy and one non-bound copy. And one is on display in the museum itself, I think, and one you can ask – you have to make an appointment and request – that you could ask to view in the library. There are probably some others in the UK, but I’m not sure. And then there are some in other places around the world.
Anna
There’s lots of things that are interesting about this for me. And one is that this expedition was all about trying to reach the South Pole and they actually failed in that endeavour. So, they got about 100 miles away and then they were almost dying of starvation, so they had to come back.
Judith
Yes, I mean I recollect that from, kind of, vague history lessons where I was paying attention…
Anna
But I suppose you know, they failed to do that, but they did succeed in publishing the first book in Antarctica, which may not be quite as, you know, adventurous. But, as you say, is pretty adventurous.
Judith
I think it’s a huge publishing adventure. And first book in Antarctica, I mean, how many other books have since been published in Antarctica?
Anna
I have tried to find that out and I have failed. So, it may be the only book published in Antarctica.
Judith
I mean, that has to be something. That’s very special indeed. Because, you know, the stamp of where a book’s produced is, and it’s so culturally important. It’s, it’s, it’s almost like it’s, to me, it’s the equivalent of putting a big flag up, so if they didn’t get there, they still did something really, really, really important – from my point of view.
Anna
Yeah, well, I also like in, there’s a book called Antarctic Days, which is very much about actual life in that hut. And Shackleton, even though he didn’t write the book, wrote the preface. He gets about a lot, Shackleton, with his writing. And he writes in that preface, “all polar explorers are optimists with vivid imaginations”. And I thought you could say that about publishers couldn’t you? Or writers?
Judith
You could say it certainly about authors? You could definitely say it about publishers, I think. It’s… It’s about risk. It’s about adventure. It’s about, yeah, imagining what might be beyond and trying to communicate that to people.
Anna
And, I like, before I kind of researched this, I would never have thought that Antarctic explorers and writers or publishers had much in common.
Judith
No, I would imagine, I imagined perhaps they kept diaries and journals, but it was all about the kind of, you know, the what was important about the particular expedition, or to do – not to do with something that’s bigger, about culture and survival and entertainment and all of these other things. And just never really thought about a role of a book in that.
Anna
But it is very much of its time. I mean, you, you alluded earlier to sort of boy scouts and actually Robert Baden Powell’s scouting for boys. published the same year as this book.
Judith
So, it’s that spirit of adventure.
Anna
The other thing I think’s really interesting is an example of a kind of highly industrious self publishing. And often we think of self publishing as a really modern phenomenon, but I checked out what else was happening in self publishing at the time and Ezra Pound self published his own poems in that same year. And, a year later, Gertrude Stein self published her first book, because she couldn’t get a publisher. So, self publishing was clearly active at that point
Judith
It was, but I don’t think either of those two authors kind of went to the great lengths of Shackleton to pull that off. They sat in a warm office…
Anna
Yes, Ezra Pound was in Venice, even, so in very nice surroundings at the time.
Judith
I just think the fact it is, it’s an adventure to do that in itself. To me, that’s… now I know about that, that’s more exciting. I’ve never kind of quite understood that mindset of kind of adventuring into the Antarctic or to try it and either conquer something which not, that’s not what they were necessarily trying to do, but to me, this is an endeavour in its own right, something that actually, yeah, is it is an important moment…
Anna
It’s the same creative adventure. You know, it’s the same exploration. But these people were trying out new skills. They didn’t know whether it would work. They didn’t know whether they’d be able to do it in the hut. And they were, they were finding ingenious workarounds to make it happen as well. So, the whole thing is like a creative adventure, not just the writing of it, and the producing of it, but, you know, how do you make binding from old packing crates and horse harnesses? How do you make sure you get the ink at the right temperature? What do you do when your ink roller melts, and you can’t just buy another one?
Judith
And that… now, I totally understand why they went to those lengths to take it with them, because it’s so absorbing. But everything from the writing, to producing, to just being able to go through every day and make sure that it was happening and paying attention to it and not having to worry about anything else and getting lost in the words or the task. I think, for me, that’s… I, I understand and right at the beginning I thought, what is this, why would they be doing this, why would they be putting this on the ship, and then filling up the space that they had with that not a ping pong table? And, so… but now I get it completely because you’d be so immersed in this self-publishing project. I understand. And to me, it was … It’s a success! The expedition was a success!
Anna
Absolutely. A publishing success. A publishing first, no less.
Judith
A publishing success,
Judith
That was really interesting!
Anna
That’s the point.
Judith
That was really, really interesting.
Anna
You sound surprised.
Judith
No, I mean it was really interesting.
End narration and credits
For more really interesting stories about the people and technology behind what we read, tune in to me, Anna Faherty, and she, Judith Watts on Bookshapers, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also follow us on Twitter at Bookshaperspod, and Instagram at Bookshaperspodcast. There’s also lots of information about this and other stories on our website: Bookshapers.co.uk.
This episode was recorded by Anna Faherty and Judith Watts and edited and produced by Anna Faherty.
The incidental music for this episode is the 1908 song All she gets from the iceman is ice performed by Edward M Favor and sourced from the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive.
The sound of the Antarctic Katabatic wind came from Stormpetrel on freesound.org.
And our theme music combines folk guitar from Dvideoguy, a typewriter sound effect from tams_kp and a print shop effect from ecfike, all available at freesound.org.
Thanks for listening. Tune in again soon.
