Another edition's cover
Cover of another edition of this book. The Bluntisham 1986 jacket has not been photographed yet.
Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 30 Oct 2026.
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The original Aurora Australis was printed and bound in 1908 at the expedition hut at Cape Royds, Antarctica, and was never published in Britain: copies went to expedition members and backers. The first edition issued in Britain is therefore the 1986 reissue from Bluntisham Books with The Paradigm Press, Alburgh, Norfolk, called the first public edition. The trade issue is a cloth hardback and is not a strict facsimile: it lacks the wooden boards. A separate limited issue of 58 numbered copies was bound in bevelled plywood boards with a calf spine and came with an introductory booklet. The 1908 original is a quarto of 94 printed leaves, untrimmed, each leaf punched with three holes, with a coloured title and 11 Marston plates, bound by Bernard Day in boards cut from expedition packing crates with a horse-harness leather spine blindstamped with the title and a penguin, sewn with green cord. Crate stencils inside the boards differ in every copy.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
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The cover image shows this book but may not be this edition or printing.
Bluntisham, Alburgh, Harleston, Norfolk, in 1986, in hardback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 30 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
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