Julian Roberts Fine Books

"O. H. M. S." [Inscribed Association Copy]. An Illustrated Record of the Voyage of S.S. Tintagel Castle Conveying Twelve Hundred Soldiers from Southampton to Cape Town, March 1900.

McLEAN, W. & SHACKLETON, E. H.

Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, 1900.

E. H. Shackleton's first book. Presentation inscription from Ernest Shackleton's father to endpaper "Given to Ellen Forman by Dr. Shackleton (Father of the Explorer), 1900" First edition, first printing. Original blue pictorial boards. Housed in a bespoke powder blue quarter morocco gilt clamshell case. A very good copy with some light scuffing to boards and tiny crack to foot with very small associated chip to bottom left of spine. Internally complete - textblock detatched from boards as is common with this title. Minor rust marking at staples. Most copies of this title are usually found with little or no spine. A rare association copy revealing the proud & perhaps prescient sentiments of the "explorer's" father.

Shackleton's naval career began at age sixteen; by 1898 he had become a Master Mariner, transferring to the troopship "Tintagel Castle" in 1899 during the Boer War. This voyage is highly significant as it was on board this ship that Shackleton befriended fellow officer Cedric Longstaff, whose father was the main backer of the National Antarctic Expedition - then being organised in London; it was through his introduction that Shackleton was commissioned to the expedition and a career in exploration and discovery began. Dr. Shackleton, father of Ernest, gave up his life as an Anglo Irish landowner and farmer in County Kildare to study medicine at Trinity College, relocating to London in 1884 for better career prospects when Ernest was just 10 years old.

Item #101715

Price: £1,950.00