Price: $2,800.00
Bewick, Thomas: (1753-1828) History of British Birds. The Figures Engraved on Wood by T. Bewick. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 containing the description and history of land birds etc. Newcastle: Sol. Hodgson; Edward Walker 1797; 1804, 1804. 2 vols. 8vo. xxx, [ii], 335, [1]; xx, 400 pp. With 233 cuts of birds in the text. Contemporary half-polished calf over boards, spine gilt; an excellent copy. This copy is signed by Henry Oates and presented to him by his Aunt Ann Rayner in Dec 1797. Ascended from Joseph Henry Oates to Lawrence (Titus) Oates who accompanied Scott on his expedition to the South Pole. First edition, second issue as shown by the presence of the words "Wycliffe, 1791" from the figure of the sea eagle on p. 11 of Volume I. Mottled calf over paper boards with some damage to the leather on volume one and volume two. Occasional spotting but otherwise a nice clean and internally bright copy. This is a very rare set, owing in part to the signature and ascension of the Oates family.
Published in two parts, the first deals with land birds, the second with water birds. "The text of the first volume was entirely written by Ralph Beilby; the illustrations are all by Bewick. It is as illustrator and artist that Bewick is best known, and mainly on account of his excellent woodcuts this work passed through numerous editions, a supplement being published by him in 1821. He also issued a number of small atlases of cuts without descriptive matter. The text in all the treatises bearing his name is mostly compilations from earlier writers." Thomas Bewick, 1753-1828, is best remembered for his wood engravings, especially those in his two works of Natural History: A General History of Quadrupeds, and A History of British Birds, Vol. I, Land Birds, Vol. II, Water Birds. The methods of printing used in the eighteenth century led Bewick to develop techniques of engraving that far surpassed the work of his contemporaries. He lowered the surface of the blocks in the areas which he ‘wished to appear pale, so as to give the effect of distance’. These techniques, together with Bewick’s complete mastery of the traditional methods, and his artistic ability, resulted in some exquisite engravings. Masterful engraving indeed, but all too frequently the printers of the day had neither the opportunity, time, or the incentive, to produce fine, sensitive impressions. Today, printing the engravings individually and using a combination of eighteenth and nineteenth century techniques, and twentieth century materials, I was able to produce impressions that I hope go some way towards revealing the full potential of the blocks. As always it was both a privilege and a pleasure to print these wood engravings. Bewick was born in the north of England at Cherryburn, on the south bank of the river Tyne, twelve miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to Ralph Beilby, a general engraver in Newcastle. Ten years later he formed a partnership with Beilby. Wood engraving was only a small part of the business and the majority of the work involved engraving inscriptions and decorations on a wide variety of objects such as guns, dog collars, harness, clock faces, rings, cutlery and the engraving of banknotes, billheads and even bookbinders' tools and letters. Bewick is best known for his wood engravings in his two works of natural history: A General History of Quadrupeds and A History of British Birds, Vol.1 Land Birds, Vol. 2 Water Birds. Bewick started to engrave the illustrations for the Quadrupeds in 1785, and in his autobiographical Memoir1 recounts: 'The greater part of these Wood cuts were drawn & engraved at nights, after the days work of the shop was over. The book was very well received, and Bewick was encouraged to work on a history of birds. © David Esslemont 1997.
On arriving at the Pole January 17-18, 1912, with a five-man party (Scott, Lieutenant Henry Bowers, Dr Edward Wilson, Petty Officer Edgar Evans and army Captain Lawrence Oates), Scott found that Amundsen had been there a month earlier. Amundsen returned to his base in good order, while Scott's entire party perished while returning from the Pole in conditions of extreme cold that have only been recorded once more since the introduction of modern weather stations in the 1960s. Heavy snowfall and refusal to abandon a significant quantity of rock samples undoubtedly also contributed to the slow pace of the party and to its ultimate end. The first to die was Evans, who was injured in a fall and suffered a swift mental and physical breakdown. A little later, Oates, who was afflicted by frostbite, had lost the use of one foot. He was also suffering from an old war wound, and deteriorated to the extent that he was holding back the rest of the party. Gradually becoming aware of the burden he was placing on the others and the fact that he had no chance of survival, Oates voluntarily left the tent, famously saying "I am just going outside and may be some time". It was his 32nd birthday. He was never seen again. The bodies of the remaining three members of Scott's party were found six months later by a party of followers, including Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Their camp, tragically, was only eleven miles (20 km) from a massive depot of supplies. With them were their diaries detailing their demise. Scott's journal contains the famous entry: 'Had we lived 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'. It ends with the words, 'We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people. R. Scott'.
Captain Lawrence Edward Grace ("Titus") Oates (17 March 1880 – 16 March 1912) was an English Antarctic explorer, known for the manner of his death, when he walked from a tent into a blizzard, with the words "I am just going outside and may be some time".
His death is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware his ill health was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death.
Background: Oates was born in Putney, London, England in 1880, and educated at South Lynn School, Eastbourne[2] and Eton College. In 1898, Oates joined the 3rd West Yorkshire (Militia) Regiment. He saw military service during the Second Boer War as a junior officer in the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, having joined in 1900 and been promoted to Lieutenant in 1902, then to Captain in 1906. In March 1901, during the Boer War, he suffered a gunshot wound to his thigh which left it shattered and his left leg an inch shorter than his right leg when it eventually healed. He was often referred to by the nickname "Titus Oates" after the historical figure. His uncle was the naturalist and African explorer Frank Oates.
Terra Nova Expedition: In 1910, he applied to join Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole, and was accepted mainly on the strength of his experience with horses and, to a lesser extent, his ability to make a financial contribution of £1,000 (2008 approximation £50,000) towards the expedition. His role was to look after the ponies that Scott intended to use for sledge hauling during the initial food depot-laying stage and the first half of the trip to the South Pole. Scott eventually selected him as one of the five-man party who would travel the final distance to the Pole.
Oates disagreed with Scott many times on issues of management of the expedition. 'Their natures jarred on one another,' a fellow expedition member recalled. When he first saw the ponies that Scott had brought on the expedition, Oates was horrified at the 'greatest lot of crocks I have ever seen' and later said: 'Scott's ignorance about marching with animals is colossal.' He also wrote in his diary "Myself, I dislike Scott intensely and would chuck the whole thing if it were not that we are a British expedition....He [Scott] is not straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere...". However, he also wrote that his harsh words were often a product of the hard conditions. Scott, less harshly, called Oates "the cheery old pessimist" and wrote “The Soldier takes a gloomy view of everything, but I’ve come to see that this is a characteristic of him”.
South polar journey: Captain Scott, Captain Oates and 14 other members of the expedition set off from their Cape Evans base camp for the South Pole on 1 November 1911. At various pre-determined latitude points during the 895-mile (1,440 km) journey, the support members of the expedition were sent back by Scott in teams until on 4 January 1912, at latitude 87° 32' S, only the five-man polar party of Scott, Edward A. Wilson, Henry R. Bowers, Edgar Evans and Oates remained to walk the last 167 miles (269 km) to the Pole. On 18 January 1912, 79 days after starting their journey, they finally reached the Pole only to discover a tent that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his four-man team had left behind at their Polheim camp after beating them in the race to be first to the Pole. Inside the tent was a note from Amundsen informing them that his party had reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911, beating Scott's party by 35 days.
The return journey: Scott's party faced extremely difficult conditions on the return journey, mainly due to the exceptionally adverse weather, poor food supply, injuries sustained from falls, and the effects of scurvy and frostbite all slowing their progress. On 17 February 1912, near the foot of the Beardmore glacier, Edgar Evans died, suspected by his companions to be the result of a blow to his head suffered during a fall into a crevasse a few days earlier.[3] Oates' feet had become severely frostbitten and it has been suggested (but never evidenced) that his war wound had re-opened by the effects of scurvy. He was certainly weakening faster than the others. His slower progress, coupled with the unwillingness of his three remaining companions to leave him, was causing the party to fall behind schedule. With an average of 65 miles (105 km) between the pre-laid food depots and only a week's worth of food and fuel provided by each depot, they needed to maintain a march of over 9 miles (14 km) a day in order to have full rations for the final 400 miles (640 km) of their return journey across the Ross Ice Shelf. However, 9 miles (14 km) was about their best progress any day and this had lately reduced to sometimes only 3 miles (4.8 km) a day due to Oates' worsening condition. On 15 March, he told his companions that he could not go on and proposed that they leave him in his sleeping-bag, which they refused to do. He managed a few more miles that day but his condition worsened that night. Waking on the morning of 16 March and recognising the need to sacrifice himself in order to give the others a chance of survival, Scott wrote that Oates said to them "I am just going outside and may be some time." Forgoing the pain and effort of putting his boots on, he walked out of the tent into a blizzard and −40 °F (−40.0 °C) temperatures to his death. Scott also wrote in his diary, "We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman". Oates' noble sacrifice however made no difference to the eventual outcome. Scott, Wilson and Bowers continued onwards for a further 20 miles (32 km) towards the 'One Ton' food depot that could save them but were halted at latitude 79°40'S by a fierce blizzard on 20 March. Trapped in their tent by the weather and too weak, cold and malnourished to continue, they eventually died nine days later, only eleven miles short of their objective. Their frozen bodies were discovered by a search party on 12 November 1912. Oates' body was never found. Near where he was presumed to have died, the search party erected a cairn and cross bearing the inscription, ‘Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships.’
