Nimrod Illustrated

Dr. David M. Wilson, PhD. (Essex), FZS, was born in 1963. Having an early career in the theatre, he moved on to study at the United World College of the Pacific and the Universities of York and Essex, where he trained as a philosopher. He is also a trained Counsellor. With a strong interest in Aboriginal cultures, he also has a wide range of ornithological and natural history interests. These have led to ten years of working on Expedition cruise ships, where he is in increasing demand both as an ornithological field guide and as an historian. He boasts numerous explorers and ornithologists on his family tree, which add a uniquely personal flavour to many of his talks. Not least amongst these is his great uncle, Dr Edward Wilson, who died with Captain Scott and his party on their return from the South Pole in 1912. David spends much of his time working to promote our historic Antarctic heritage and is recently retired as Chairman of the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, UK. He is also the producer of several books (Cheltenham in Antarctica: the Life of Edward Wilson, Reardon Publishing, 2000; Discovery Illustrated: Pictures from Captain Scott's First Antarctic Expedition, Reardon Publishing 2001; and Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks, Reardon Publishing 2004) and has also produced a CD of historic Antarctic expedition songs and poems (The Songs of the 'Morning': a musical sketch, Reardon Publishing 2002). All the royalties from these works are donated to support Antarctic heritage projects.

Nimrod Illustrated will never be bettered. A magnificent work of gathering and arrangement, devotedly and thoroughly researched, it reproduces and explains a great number of original images, many of them hard to find, of Shackleton's less familiar but quite extraordinary expedition. This lively, well designed and produced volume should surely be in the private libraries of all discriminating Heroic Age enthusiasts. (Jan Piggott).