Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer: The Double Life of Herbert Dyce Murphy

Biography of spy and Antarctic explorer Herbert Dyce Murphy. Tells of his rejection of his wealthy upbringing in favour of apprenticing himself to a wool clipper and then going whaling in the Arctic. Recounts his time as a spy in drag for British intelligence before World War I and his trip to Antarctica with the Mawson expedition in 1911. Includes photographs, list of expeditioners and ship’s officers, glossary, notes on sources and selected bibliography. pp. xiv, 407 illusts #0819/0920 First Edition. Patrick White used Herbert Murphy as a model, in part, for the character of Eddie Twyborn in The Twyborn Affair.

Murphy volunteered for Ernest Shackleton’s 1908 Antarctic expedition as a surveyor, but was turned down for supposed effeminacy—a charge he always vigorously denied. (Sir) Douglas Mawson, however, accepted him for his 1911-14 expedition. Murphy was in charge of stores, during 1912 in command of the southern supporting party, and of winter quarters during Mawson’s absence. Mawson wrote of him as ‘Our stand-by in small talk, travel, history, literature and what not’ and elsewhere referred to his ‘services cheerfully rendered’.