A book bound with the wooden boards from old packing cases and worn-out harness leather is to be sold for £30,000 sterling at auction in London.
Aurora Australis, an account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole in 1908-9, is one of the rarest works from the golden age of polar exploration.
It has the distinction of being the first book printed in the Antarctic and will go under the hammer at Bloomsbury Book Auctions on October 9th.
Shackleton (1874-1922) was born at Kilkea, Co Kildare. He was a veteran of polar exploration and realised the importance of providing his team with jobs to keep them active during the dark winter months of polar night.
He hit upon the idea of shipping a printing press and plate-making equipment to the South Pole. Frank Wild and Ernest Joyce, two members of his team, took a crash course in printing before the expedition departed from home and turned out 100 copies of the book.
But the refinements of a print works were in short supply. The two men improvised and copies were often bound in wooden boards from disused packing cases.
Leather from harnesses was used for the backstrip of the book. The current example being sold anonymously by a private collector has boards with stencils still reading: "Butter" and "British Antarctic Expedition".
Rupert Powell, a director of the saleroom, said: "Copies of this book turn up from time to time, but this is a splendid example which gives a real flavour of the harsh conditions under which these men worked."
Shackleton was knighted in 1909 and on his second expedition south his ship Endurance was crushed by ice in 1915.
He and five others then made a perilous journey of 800 miles across stormy seas in an open boat to South America to bring aid to the remainder of the crew who had been left behind. The explorer died on South Georgia in 1922.