The Worst Journey in the World

'When people ask me... "What is your favourite travel book?" I nearly always name this book. It is about courage, misery, starvation, heroism, exploration, discovery and friendship' Paul Theroux

Despite the horrors that Scott and his men eventually faced, Cherry-Garrard's account is filled with details of scientific discovery and anecdotes of human resilience in a harsh environment, supported by diary excerpts and accounts from other explorers.

A young member of Scott's expedition records what happens when exploration becomes an ordeal at the limits of human endurance.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the youngest members of Scott's Antarctic team. His account of the expedition follows a journey that went disastrously wrong, capturing the physical horrors faced by the men alongside scientific discovery, extraordinary landscapes and the stubborn human impulse to continue.

The Worst Journey in the World has become a landmark of travel and adventure writing because it refuses to separate exploration from its cost. Cold, danger and failure sit beside curiosity, comradeship and close observation of an environment that repeatedly overwhelms human plans.

For readers fascinated by Antarctic exploration, polar expeditions, survival and classic adventure memoir, Cherry-Garrard's eyewitness narrative brings Scott's world into immediate focus. The knowledge of what lies ahead gives every decision, hardship and act of endurance an accumulating weight.

'The Worst Journey in the World is to travel what War and Peace is to the novel... a masterpiece' New York Review of Books