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 Oatess last words: Im just going outside, and I may be some time. Francis Spuffords celebrated and prize-winning history shows how Scotts 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.