The Worst Journey in the World (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Since Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole in 1910-1912, controversy has raged about the correct interpretation of and explanation for the tragedy. Some writers have drawn a picture of Scott as a bumbling incompetent, whose lack of experience and preparation condemned his men to their deaths. Aspley Cherry-Garrard's account The Worst Journey in the World written ten years after his narrow escape from the fate of his companions tells another side of the story. Here he portrays Scott as a fearless and noble leader whose only thought upon his death was concern for his companions on the expedition and for his wife and child.

The questions raised by the fate of the British Antarctic Expedition of the Terra Nova remain evocative and unsettling: What sort of man was Scott? What was at stake in the race to claim the South Pole? Why did these men perish, and what was their legacy? Ten years after his narrow escape from the fate of his companions Cherry-Garrard attempts to answer these daunting questions in The Worst Journey in the World (1922).