An extraordinary artifact from the twilight of Shackleton’s career.

This very large world map on Mercator’s Projection was first published 1874 but has here been updated to 1921 and overprinted in red to show the intended route and scientific objectives of the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition (1921-2). Despite health problems, perhaps brought on by the exertions of earlier explorations and excessive drinking, Shackleton was by 1920 desperate for more adventure. Financed by British businessman John Quiller Rowett (1876-1924), he purchased a converted Norwegian sealer, renamed it Quest, and announced a voyage of circumnavigation with an extraordinary list of objectives. These included, but were hardly limited to, locating “lost” Pacific and Antarctic islands, scouting suitable sites for a whaling base in the South Atlantic, conducting extensive hydrographic surveys, filming animal life on isolated Atlantic islands, and the “determination, all along the route, of upper air currents at different levels by pilot balloons liberated simultaneously by ship & aeroplane[!] at certain set heights.” All of these and much more are shown on this map, which Shackleton must have had printed for use in drumming up funding for his final adventure.

After setting sail from St Katherine’s Dock on September 17th, 1921, Quest soon proved to be both too small for the ambitious voyage and prone to breakdowns. Engine problems delayed the expedition in Lisbon, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands, so, instead of following the planned route through Tristan da Cunha and Cape Town as shown on the map, she turned to Rio de Janeiro, arriving on 22nd November. After an engine overhaul the expedition left for South Georgia, arriving on the January 4th, 1922. The very next day Shackleton died of a heart attack at the age of 47. Leaving his body on South Georgia, where it was later buried, Quest proceeded as planned to the South Sandwich Islands, then visited Elephant Island in the South Shetlands, where Shackleton’s three lifeboats had landed in 1916 after the sinking of the Endurance. She then returned to South Georgia and meandered home via several Atlantic Islands.

Because the expedition’s intended route was abandoned so quickly this chart may be a unique visual record of what two biographers called a plan “far too comprehensive for one small body of men to tackle within two years.” (Margery and James Fisher, Shackleton) It documents a pivotal moment in the history of exploration, what the Fishers called “the dividing line between what has become known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration and the Mechanical Age.”

The base map (Chart of the World) is itself quite rare, and I find no record of this overprinted edition either in institutional collections or having appeared in the antiquarian market.

References

As of July 2015 I find no examples in COPAC, OCLC, Antique Map Price Record or Rare Book Hub. Not in Pedersen & Curtis, The Mapping of Antarctica.