ANTARCTIC BOOKS DUE and WORKS-IN-PROGRESS

Included here are notices of books not yet published and projects underway.

Last updated: 5 February 2012.

Anthony, Jason. Hoosh: Stories of Antarctic Cuisine
Baughman, T.H. Focusing on Antarctica between 1922 and 1941
Bowers, Henry Robertson "Birdie" The South Pole Journals
Brannigan, David Biography of T.W. Edgeworth David
Clough, Brenda A. May be Some Time
Fitzsimons, Peter. An heroic age book
Folio Society South Polar Times volumes I-IV
Gurney, Alan Book underway on the Nimrod expedition
Harrowfield, David. Two + in the pipeline
Pierce, Richard A Scott novel
Roberts, David. A book on Mawson
Rossiter, Heather. Mawson's Forgotten Men, The 1911-1913 Antarctic Diary of Charles Turnbull Harrisson
Savours, Ann Sir Clements Markham book and article
Strathie, Anne. Birdie Bowers bio
van Glintenkamp, Rik A coffee table book on his Antarctic collages

Richard Pierce e-mails to say his new novel focusing on the Polar Party's final camp is due out on 19 March. (If the 29th were chosen instead it would correspond with the likely 100th anniversary of the death of Scott, Wilson and Bowers.) Check his website for more details.

"The discovery of Captain Scott's body in the Antarctic in November 1912 started a global obsession with him as a man and an explorer. One mystery remains—why did he and his companions spend their last ten days in a tent 11 miles from the relative safety of a large food and fuel depot?

Birdie Bowers, an infamously secretive painter, is a woman with a dead man's name. Her parents were obsessed by her namesake, Henry 'Birdie' Bowers, one of Scott's companions. Almost a hundred years after his death, she is determined to discover what really happened to him. On her way to view some of the things recovered from Scott's tent, she collapses, and is rescued by Adam, a bored computer geek, who falls in love with her, to the extent of agreeing to travel to the Antarctic with her to discover the site of Scott's tent, now under 30 metres of ice."

David Harrowfield e-mails from New Zealand that "I am awaiting word from my publisher on the mountaineering book due out next year (has reference to climbing in Antarctica); and in the meantime, have got into research for a book on NZ's Antarctic science and also completing my draft for a paper in 'Polar Record'.
(30 November 2011)

Due to be published by Scott Polar Research Institute on 31 October 2011 are The South Pole Journals of Henry Robertson "Birdie" Bowers. They are being edited by Heather Lane, Naomi Boneham and Robert D. Smith with an Introduction by Anne Strathie. The Deluxe Subscribers' Edition, limited to 200 copies, will be available at £130.

"The Journals
Throughout his time on Scott's expedition, Bowers kept a meticulous diary, which recorded not only the events of each day, but also his own thoughts, hopes and fears. These journals have never before been published. The Scott Polar Research Institute is proud to announce that they will finally be available in a beautifully produced letterpress edition, limited to 200 copies and available by subscription. The volume will also include the letters written home during the Polar journey on pages torn from Bowers' journal and notebooks.

The Limited Edition
In this centenary year of the expedition, an edition has been planned that will not only present the words of Henry Bowers for the first time, but will also be a tangible artefact, redolent of the time at which they were written. Each of the 200 copies of the Journals will be printed directly from lead type and quarter bound in leather.

The Printer
The book will be printed by Hand & Eye Letterpress of London, who have previously worked with The British Library, the Royal Academy of Arts and The Folio Society."

I've been told on good authority that the Folio Society is intending to publish in 2012 all four volumes of the South Polar Times, the expedition publication produced during Scott's two expeditions. Volume IV has just recently been published for the first time and the three earlier ones were re-issued in 2002.
(4 July 2011)

David Roberts, mountaineer and prolific author, is currently working on a book on Douglas Mawson. Publication set for January 2003. No further details at the moment.
(4 July 2011)

Anne Straithie is also preparing a biography for the History Press, this one for another member of the Polar Party—Birdie Bowers. Due out in 2012.
(6 September 2010)

At an Antarctic gathering in Maine this summer, Jason Anthony menioned the book he's been working on about Antarctic food. He's since e-mailed me this description:

"I'm writing to let you know that I have a manuscript well underway on the topic of food in Antarctica. The working title is Hoosh: Stories of Antarctic Cuisine, and it is to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. No date has been set for publication, but the first full draft of the ms. is in the hands of the editor. There will be a round or two of edits, and I'll let you know publication info when the time comes. As the title suggests, Hoosh is built of Antarctic food stories, starting with the Belgica and an in-depth reading of the heroic age before running chronologically up through the era of Byrd, Ellsworth and Rymill to the NBSAE and the IGY before finally turning to recent years in McMurdo, South Pole and other stations. Throughout the chronology, Hoosh highlights the tribulations of cooks, the role of diet and (often poor) nutrition, and the sometimes desperate state of affairs in Antarctic trail food. All the well-known (and many lesser-known) dramas from the heroic age, often involving the consumption of wildlife or transport (dogs and ponies), are retold in light of the crucial importance of food in all of them.

Naturally, the narratives change as we leave tales of scurvy and pemmican behind and arrive instead at the late-twentieth century year-round, cafeteria-fed occupation, but there are story lines that weave together the old cuisine and the new.

Hoosh should be comprehensive enough in its research to inform even a well-read Antarctican while entertaining enough to interest the first-time reader of Antarctic history.

The chapter titles for Hoosh, as I imagine them now, are as follows:
      Prologue - A Recipe for Something.
      Chapter 1 All Thinking and Talking of Food
      Chapter 2 The Secret Society of Unconventional Cooks
      Chapter 3 It Paid for its Cheek with its Life
      Chapter 4 Meat and Melted Snow
      Chapter 5 How to Keep a Fat Explorer in Prime Condition
      Chapter 6 Into the Deep Freeze
      Chapter 7 Prisoner-of-War Syndrome
      Chapter 8 The Syrup of American Comfort
      Chapter 9 A Cookie and a Story
      Chapter 10 Sleeping with Vegetables
      Chapter 11 A Tale of Two Stations
      Epilogue - Not Under These Conditions

I worked in the USAP from 1994 to 2004 in various positions, based in McMurdo but traveling out over the years to a wide variety of field camps in both West and East Antarctica. More recently, I've been publishing essays about Antarctica in various magazines, most recently Orion and The Virginia Quarterly Review.

Anyone interested in talking to me about Hoosh can reach me through my website of Antarctic essays and photographs, http://www.albedoimages.com"

T.H. Baughman e-mails to say:

"I wanted to call to your attention and have you post on the works-in-progress page, that I am at work on a book that will describe Antarctica, 1922-1941. I failed to register a previous project and after two years of research discovered that someone else had completed her manuscript, so I am hoping to avoid that problem this time around."

UPDATE: The April issue of 'Analog' is now out. Not the easiest thing to find; took two trips to Harvard Square! Pp 12-41 out of 144 pages. This is what Brenda had to say recently: "The magazine has printed the novella [MAY BE SOME TIME], which is about 20,000 words and comprises the front end of the full novel. The web page [http://www.analogsf.com/0104/issue_0104.html] has only an excerpt of the novella, looks like the first couple thousand words. The magazine is a print publication and ought to be available now at newsstands, in big bookstores, etc. So on the web page you really are getting a very tiny sample indeed. The novel itself is far far longer (at this point I'd estimate 150,000 words) and will not be published until 2002 or 2003."
—R. Stephenson
(15 March 2001)

UPDATE: Brenda recently reported that she's done another novella about Titus which should be appearing in the July-August 2002 issue of ANALOG.
Also, her first one "...has made the final ballot for the Nebula Award, which is given by the Science Fiction Writers of America. As a result, the complete novella is up on the Analog web site — www.analogsf.com" Congratulations!
—R. Stephenson
(10 March 2002)

UPDATE: Have a look at Brenda's very useful bibliography at http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/rtwbib.htm
—R. Stephenson
(6 March 2003)

UPDATE: Riffenburgh's book is now out. Nimrod: Ernest Shackleton and the Extraordinary Story of the 1907-09 British Antarctic Expedition. See 'Antarctic Book Notes' elsewhere on this site.
(27 January 2005)

UPDATE: Have heard nothing about Alan Gurney's effort in some time.
(2 December 2006)

UPDATE: "Alan Gurney's book on 'Nimrod' is still a work-in-progress, with publication expected late 2007, or (more likely), 2008."
—Thanks to Joe O'Farrell who's had some recent conversations with Alan.
(2 January 2007)

UPDATE: During my recent trip to England I learned that Alan's ms got lost, stolen or otherwise went missing, and with no backups anywhere. Shades of T.E. Lawrence who left the ms of 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' on the platform of the Reading station. Let's hope the project has a phoenix-like resurrection.
(21 June 2008)

UPDATE: I recently received a copy from Rik; a very nice production. Am now waiting to learn of its general availability.
—R. Stephenson
(28 January 2004)

UPDATE: The article appeared in the March 2001 issue (Vol 51 [3]; pp 44-51), entitled 'From Greenland's Icy Mountains.' Ann has been working on a book-length biography of Markham.

UPDATE: Ann spoke on Markham at the 4 November 2005 James Caird Society members' evening. Her book on Markham is complete but, oddly enough, no publisher is in the wings. Markham being the key figure in the launch of the 'Heroic Age' one would think this would be a very publishable biography, particularly given the credentials of the author.
—R. Stephenson
(29 November 2005)