I May Be Some Time

When Captain Scott died in 1912 on his way back from the South Pole, his story became a myth embedded in the national imagination. Everyone remembers the doomed Captain Oates'
s last words: '
I'
m just going outside, and I may be some time.' Francis Spufford'
s celebrated and prize-winning history shows how Scott'
s death was the culmination of a national enchantment with vast empty spaces, the beauty of untrodden snow, and perilous journeys to the end of the earth.
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