The final letters and diary entries of Robert Falcon Scott — written in his last days, while hopelessly trapped in a tiny tent by a raging blizzard on the Great Ice Barrier — are among the most poignant and haunting passages ever penned. 'Had we lived', he wrote, 'I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman'. Scott's diaries, discovered with his body the next spring and then used as the essence of the book Scott's Last Expedition, caught the public imagination in a way few tales of exploration ever have. The account of Scott's second Antarctic expedition describes the near-disastrous voyage south, the dangers and beauties of the long, dark winter, and the brutal hardships of the trek to the South Pole. But it was the Polar Party's unflagging stamina, bravery, and spirit on their tragic return after finding they had been beaten to their goal by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen that so resonated with the British public. Scott's evocative telling of this story created a legend that would grip the world for generations.

When I received the script of The Voyage of the Discovery I was amazed. I had only to read a few pages to realise that it was literature, unique of its kind... Scott's mind was like wax to receive an impression and like marble to retain it. So wrote Leonard Huxley, and he was not alone in his opinion. When this account of Scott's first Antarctic expedition appeared in 1905 the reviewers recognised it as a masterpiece and the first printing sold out immediately. Scott is best known for his doomed last expedition in 1912, but it was this earlier voyage that truly began the opening up of the Antarctic continent and laid the groundwork for the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. The record of that voyage is a classic account by a remarkable explorer who was also one of the most talented writers in the field of polar exploration. Scott brings alive for the reader the brilliance of the aurora in the long winter nights, the hunger and danger of sledging trips, the isolation, and the joy of seeing what no human eye had previously seen.