A Very Gallant Gentleman.

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Bull, Colin. Email message to David Stam, August 31, 2005:

A Very Gallant Gentleman.

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This is Bernacchi’s hagiographic biography of Capt. Lawrence Oates, who died with Scott on the 1912 South Pole expedition [“I may be some time”], recalled more than 20 years later. Bernacchi, who was aboard the first Scott expedition on Discovery, idealized Scott “a leader with no desire for publicity or cheap notoriety. A man of high ideals…, The new expedition was no mere dash to the Pole to snatch priority from rival explorers, though the hope of this laurel leaf in the crown of adventure was an added spur to natural ambition” (p. 50).

Saga of the “Discovery.

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Bernacchi was an Australian/Belgian explorer, another veteran of the heroic age of polar exploration, having participated in Borchgrevink’s Southern Cross expedition, Scott’s Discovery expedition, as well as journeys to Africa and Peru. He was also the biographer of Lawrence Oates, who died on Scott’s last expedition.

That First Antarctic Winter: The Story of the Southern Cross Expedition of 1898-1900, as Told in the Diaries of Louis Charles Bernacchi

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A rather heavily edited version of Bernacchi’s diaries together with passages from To the South Polar Regions, with connecting commentary of tedious nature, until the end. Most interesting are the feuds between Borchgrevink and Bernacchi, which are well-captured in the text. Not much reference to reading, books, etc., nor the supposedly decent library aboard ship. Here are a few references:

To the South Polar Regions: Expedition of 1898-1900.

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Hardly the most scintillating of Antarctic narratives, but fascinating for the way in which Bernacchi ignores the presence of Borchgrevink, referring to him only as the commander (almost never by name), never giving him any role in the expedition. See Janet Crawford’s edition above for a more candid account of the expedition. Bernacchi’s emphasis was always on science and much of this account is a description of what he and his colleagues found, indicating other avenues of exploration. There are many literary allusions and quotations, but little indication of what he read aboard ship or while wintering at Cape Adare.