99 books
—
59 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “The Worst Journey in the World” as Want to Read:
The Worst Journey in the World
by
The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott's legendary exp
...more
Get A Copy
Paperback, 640 pages
Published
February 28th 2006
by Penguin Classics
(first published 1922)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
The Worst Journey in the World,
please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of The Worst Journey in the World

Never again. Never again will I complain. About anything. The sufferings heaped on the members of Scott’s second polar expedition make the ordinary misfortunes of modern life –- the fender-benders, hangovers and breakups –- seem like pleasant diversions. There are passages in this amazing memoir where the reader, appalled, begins to suspect that these men were collaborating on a metaphysically refined form of self-destruction.
Apsley Cherry-Gerrard –- and let me say now what a wonderfully plummy ...more
Apsley Cherry-Gerrard –- and let me say now what a wonderfully plummy ...more

Written by one of Scott's men on his last fatal expedition to the South Pole, Worst Journey was written by one of the youngest men on his team and one of the most stouthearted. Cherry-Garrard went on the Winter Journey trip during the expedition to collect bird eggs. His story would have been horrific enough without the tragic end of Scott and several of his best and true friends later on. Cherry-Garrard was one of the team members who eventually found his leader and the others dead.
Favorite qu ...more
Favorite qu ...more

An interim review on the subject of DOGS and PONIES, creatures absolutely vital to any polar expedition in 1910. (They called them ponies, they were actually small Manchurian horses.) This is what happened to working animals, sometimes.
The voyage from England to Antarctica via South Africa and New Zealand lasted five weeks. They took 19 ponies and 33 dogs.
The ponies and the dogs were the first consideration. Even in quite ordinary weather the dogs had a wretched time.
They are chained up in var ...more
The voyage from England to Antarctica via South Africa and New Zealand lasted five weeks. They took 19 ponies and 33 dogs.
The ponies and the dogs were the first consideration. Even in quite ordinary weather the dogs had a wretched time.
They are chained up in var ...more

Sep 02, 2017
Bettie
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
bbc radio listeners
Recommended to Bettie by:
Laura

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djvtl
Description: As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the rescue party that eventually found t ...more

Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s ‘worst journey in the world’ is not Scott’s journey to the South Pole. I was surprised by that. It was the journey he made to Cape Crozier, with Bowers and Wilson of the ill fated polar team, in search of Emperor penguin embryos. It’s hard to believe that they were amongst the first men to see Emperor penguins and that they were prepared to risk their lives, and very nearly lost them, in the interests of furthering scientific knowledge of the penguins’ place in evolution.
...more

May 03, 2012
Laura
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
Bettie
Recommended to Laura by:
Wanda
Shelves:
travel,
adventure,
e-books,
gutenberg,
audio-books,
antarctica,
memoir-biography,
read-2015
Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Apsley Cherry-Garrard's gripping account of his experiences as the youngest member of Captain Scott's polar expedition team, adapted by Stef Penney.
1/2: In the austerely beautiful ices capes of Antarctica, things go disastrously wrong.
2/2: After two months of hard marching, Scott must tell four of the surviving twelve men that they must turn back.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green
Captain Robert Falcon Scott ... ...more
From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Apsley Cherry-Garrard's gripping account of his experiences as the youngest member of Captain Scott's polar expedition team, adapted by Stef Penney.
1/2: In the austerely beautiful ices capes of Antarctica, things go disastrously wrong.
2/2: After two months of hard marching, Scott must tell four of the surviving twelve men that they must turn back.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green
Captain Robert Falcon Scott ... ...more

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard is his account of the 1910-13 Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition, made when the author was 24. Initially rejected as being unqualified because he lacked a needed background in science, Cherry-Garrard, who had read classics, studying Latin & Greek at Oxford, was eventually chosen as an "assistant zoologist" when he guaranteed a substantial amount (£100, the equivalent of $130,000 in U.S. currency today) to help fund the exp
...more

Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds. But this journey had beggared our language: no words could express its horror.
Originally released in 1922, The Worst Journey in the World is a contemporaneous account of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13, as written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard: Scott's second youngest team member (twenty-four at the time of sailing) who would go on to serve England admirably in the First Worl ...more

Jul 08, 2011
Lisa
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Everyone
Shelves:
kindle-baby,
own,
been-around-the-world-and-i-i-i,
history,
faves,
non-fic,
what-a-man,
2011,
book-crushes
He wasn't lying with that title, but what's missed out is that it's perhaps the most incredible journey too, as well as one of the most incredible books I've ever read (if I could give this 10 stars it wouldn't be enough).
Concerning Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic of which I previously knew woefully little (even though he's a hometown boy), I no longer have to lament that fact thanks to this most comprehensive and compelling account by Apsley Cherry-Garrard who, at 24, was a member of t ...more
Concerning Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic of which I previously knew woefully little (even though he's a hometown boy), I no longer have to lament that fact thanks to this most comprehensive and compelling account by Apsley Cherry-Garrard who, at 24, was a member of t ...more

This is, quite simply, my desert island book. No other book encapsulates the message of hope in amoungst utter futility quite as perfectly as this. Describing the adventures of the Scott expedition, for all its joy and folly, based on the jaded observations of a man who went filled with hope and expectation and looks back at an older, more cynical age. As a travel diary, it has no comparison: this truly was a journey into the heart of darkness. While the famous Scott expedition to the pole is co
...more

I think I would have quite enjoyed a condensed version of this book, minus the two very long (and fairly useless) introductions, the slog of endless details ( multiple daily temperature readings, accounts of meals, miles logged, weather and sledging surface notes, other record-keeping minutia), and, most importantly the repeated paeans to Cherry's fellow explorers, who, we are repeatedly told, were endowed with marvelous temperaments and almost never complained and were eternally cheerful under
...more

Read this book and you'll never bitch about stuff like not having enough towels in your hotel room or an over-cooked steak you were served at a restaurant in Paris. Yet another story that makes the modern man relize that there are no more worlds to discover. Polar exploration was just about the last of the travels into the unknown. I don't count space exploration because for that you need an entire country's economy behind you. Now any knob can circle the world with only a credit card. Sic trans
...more

This book has a number of problems. From minor to major:
- It has an insane amount of introductory text
- It is self-consciously written as an epitaph to all the dead expedition members
- It's overly detailed and full of information that is almost completely irrelevant and uninteresting to the modern reader
This book has two introductions and a foreward, totalling almost 100 pages. I didn't feel that these pages were necessary or added much to my enjoyment of the text. At best they should be skimmed ...more
- It has an insane amount of introductory text
- It is self-consciously written as an epitaph to all the dead expedition members
- It's overly detailed and full of information that is almost completely irrelevant and uninteresting to the modern reader
This book has two introductions and a foreward, totalling almost 100 pages. I didn't feel that these pages were necessary or added much to my enjoyment of the text. At best they should be skimmed ...more

This is a first rate adventure story told by a man who is sensitive, thoughtful, courageous, and kindhearted. The part of the book from which the title is taken is maybe the most harrowing saga I've ever encountered, involving minus 70+ degree temperatures, howling winds, deadly crevasses, starvation, hopelessness, and endless darkness, all to collect Emperor Penguin eggs in the middle of an Antarctic winter.
I am not so big on non-fiction generally, but this is a book I could read again and a ...more
I am not so big on non-fiction generally, but this is a book I could read again and a ...more

This is a slow read, but not dull, just packed full of information. Cherry-Garrard (Cherry) was asked to provide some information on how to pack & train for future expeditions, based on his experience (he might not have been the most experienced of the group, but he had worked a lot with Wilson & Scott, so was one of the most knowledgeable survivors). He fulfilled that chore, but he wanted so much more to be said & this was the outcome. Bernard Shaw was a neighbour & so helped in encouragement &
...more

Apsley Cherry-Garrard's 'The Worst Journey in the World' is quite simply a 20th century classic. Published in 1922, the author recounts, in almost six hundred pages, Scott's polar expedition of 1910-1913.
I find reviewing this book extremely difficult. I'm probably still in a state of reverential and dumfounded awe after reading such an eloquent masterpiece. In the field of polar exploration or travel writing, this book is utterly astounding.
It is now a century past since the exploits of this 'wo ...more
I find reviewing this book extremely difficult. I'm probably still in a state of reverential and dumfounded awe after reading such an eloquent masterpiece. In the field of polar exploration or travel writing, this book is utterly astounding.
It is now a century past since the exploits of this 'wo ...more

Pemmican, apparently, tastes quite delicious when stirred into hot water and eaten as a "hoosh." Also, the Antarctic is cold & horrible & I really want to go there because falling in a crevasse would look amazing on a tombstone.
...more

Well, this sure was a long, exhausting read.
As an account of a very unique human experience it's absolutely priceless, as a book one feels kind of drowned in details.
Still, considering ACG wasn't a professional author, I'd say he was rather a natural. Though I did enjoy whenever he'd quote the diaries of the other members of the expedition (not so much Scott, in turns dry and melodramatic, but someone like Lashly, for instance).
I do realise the book had sort of a manifold purpose at the time of ...more
As an account of a very unique human experience it's absolutely priceless, as a book one feels kind of drowned in details.
Still, considering ACG wasn't a professional author, I'd say he was rather a natural. Though I did enjoy whenever he'd quote the diaries of the other members of the expedition (not so much Scott, in turns dry and melodramatic, but someone like Lashly, for instance).
I do realise the book had sort of a manifold purpose at the time of ...more

At a time when traditional heroism has been deconstructed and psycho-analysed out of existence, it becomes more necessary to understand the nature and purpose of the desire which drove a crew of men, most no longer young, to explore Antarctica and reach the South Pole. Note the order of those objectives: the comparison of Scott's 'failure' with Amundsen's 'success' is outrageously wrong: the latter was in a race to the Pole, the British party had a wide variety of scientific observations and int
...more

I read this book of 600 pages in less than a week and believe me, its not on the TOP 100 list for travel and adventure books for nothing!
If you know the story of Scott and his companions and the drama at the south pole already you will probably find this book easier to read but the author makes many footnotes so that also "beginners" in polar exploration can understand it well!
What I loved about this book is that we get the view of an ordinary expedition member, neither sailor nor scientist, b ...more
If you know the story of Scott and his companions and the drama at the south pole already you will probably find this book easier to read but the author makes many footnotes so that also "beginners" in polar exploration can understand it well!
What I loved about this book is that we get the view of an ordinary expedition member, neither sailor nor scientist, b ...more

Absolutely the most astonishing narrative of human trial survival against nature. The "Worst Journey..." is not Scott's expedition to the Pole, tragic as that was, but the Winter Journey to the rookeries of the Emperor Penguins.. Facing temperatures as low as -78��F and fierce blizzards and gales the small team man-hauls to the rookeries, at one point having their tent blow away at night! Remember this was in 1911. No Goretex, no nylon.. All in search of the Emperor Penguin's egg.
Cherry-Garrard ...more
Cherry-Garrard ...more

Dec 06, 2014
Wanda
marked it as to-read
9 Dec 2014 -- find it here -- http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14363
...more
...more

Strong contender for best book i've ever read! Salute to you Cherry
...more

One of the finest books I have ever read in terms of defining the spirit of the adventurer going genuinely into the unknown.
Everyone knows the tragedy of the Scott Polar expedition, with its supposed 'race' with Amundsen to get to the South Pole, but here is one of the key members of that expedition some 10 years on, reflecting on it all, from start to finish.
To say heroic, is just simply an understatement. Cherry-Garrard's very own 'worst journey' with Wilson and Bowers off to Cape Crozier to c ...more
Everyone knows the tragedy of the Scott Polar expedition, with its supposed 'race' with Amundsen to get to the South Pole, but here is one of the key members of that expedition some 10 years on, reflecting on it all, from start to finish.
To say heroic, is just simply an understatement. Cherry-Garrard's very own 'worst journey' with Wilson and Bowers off to Cape Crozier to c ...more

Christened with such an exotic moniker, our flamboyantly named author could only have pursued one of three careers: an Edwardian rector, the reluctant bait in an Oscar Wilde honeytrap operation or else an intrepid yet feckless explorer. Fortunately for the literary world, Apsley Cherry-Garrard became the latter… though more fettered than feckless.
Perhaps not a natural writer, C-G cribs from various other expedition members’ anecdotes, personal notes and posthumous diaries. Antarctic companion Bo ...more
Perhaps not a natural writer, C-G cribs from various other expedition members’ anecdotes, personal notes and posthumous diaries. Antarctic companion Bo ...more

(Free on the Gutenberg Project, complete with illustrations.)
But I also bought this hardback copy. A wonderfully thick book, beautiful to hold and read. So much more 'satisfying' than reading on a Kindle
A fabulous book, written in a comfortably 'personal' manner without any heroics ,just a factual account of real life. Utterly readable, amusing, sad, terrifying and brought me to tears in places. Quiet, understated English pluck at its best, and very different in style to Scott's somewhat dry an ...more
But I also bought this hardback copy. A wonderfully thick book, beautiful to hold and read. So much more 'satisfying' than reading on a Kindle
A fabulous book, written in a comfortably 'personal' manner without any heroics ,just a factual account of real life. Utterly readable, amusing, sad, terrifying and brought me to tears in places. Quiet, understated English pluck at its best, and very different in style to Scott's somewhat dry an ...more

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” said Henry David Thoreau when he read the galley proof of Walden and realized what kind of gonif editor he was faced with. Still, it did rather well. So has The Worst Journey, in spite of the fact the Natointal Geograhpic society ! has gotten hold of it.”
Now the book is over, and it’s back to my stinkin’ life. This is a fudge sundae of personal history, journals of explorer friends; of mountains, glaciers, ice, crevasses, pemmican and killer wh ...more
Now the book is over, and it’s back to my stinkin’ life. This is a fudge sundae of personal history, journals of explorer friends; of mountains, glaciers, ice, crevasses, pemmican and killer wh ...more

Things I have learned:
- your teeth can shatter in your mouth when it's -60F
- you can get frostbite on the same parts of your body over and over again
- it's possible to "thaw" a sleeping bag in negative temperatures
- penguins have little fear
- the Poles are dangerous places (well, ok, I knew that one already)
- scientists are b**-s*** crazy
So yes, this was a fascinating book. I don't recommend it unless you're really into a lot of sciency jargon (or can skim quickly) but if you're remotely interes ...more
- your teeth can shatter in your mouth when it's -60F
- you can get frostbite on the same parts of your body over and over again
- it's possible to "thaw" a sleeping bag in negative temperatures
- penguins have little fear
- the Poles are dangerous places (well, ok, I knew that one already)
- scientists are b**-s*** crazy
So yes, this was a fascinating book. I don't recommend it unless you're really into a lot of sciency jargon (or can skim quickly) but if you're remotely interes ...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Related Articles
As this strange summer of staying put winds down, one thing remains truer than ever: Books offer us endless adventure and new horizons to...
56 likes · 30 comments
7 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.”
—
21 likes
“Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”
—
18 likes
More quotes…