Book description
To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read
This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage
Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to
tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books.
THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
INTRODUCED BY SARA WHEELER
A gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. One of
the youngest members of Captain Scott's team, Apsley Cherry-Garrard
was later part of the rescue party that found the frozen bodies of
Scott and the three men who had accompanied him on the final push to
the Pole. A masterpiece of travel writing, this is the most celebrated
and compelling of all the books on Antarctic exploration.
THE ROAD TO OXIANA
In 1933, the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a
journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and
Teheran to Oxiana - part of the border between what is now Afghanistan
and the Soviet Union. This is the captivating, quirky record of his
adventures and a rare account of the architectural treasures of a
region now inaccessible to most Western travellers.
Robert Byron was born in England in 1905 into a family
distantly related to Lord Byron. He attended Eton and Merton College,
Oxford, and wrote several other travel books before his untimely death
in 1941 when his ship to West Africa was torpedoed while serving as a
correspondent for a London newspaper during World War II. Among his
other books are The Station (1928), The Byzantine
Achievement (1929), and First Russia, Then Tibet (1933).
Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959) was one of the youngest
members of Captain Scott's final expedition to the Antarctic which he
joined to collect the eggs of the Emperor penguin. After the
expedition, Cherry-Garrard served in the First World War and was
invalided home. With the zealous encouragement of his neighbour,
George Bernard Shaw, Cherry-Garrard wrote The Worst Journey in the
World (1922) in an attempt to overcome the horror of the journey.
As the years unravelled he faced a terrible struggle against
depression, breakdown and despair, haunted by the possibility that he
could have saved Scott and his companions.
