Dimensions
197 x 253 x 25mm
An Illustrated Account
In December 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men set sail from South Georgia for the South Pole on board the "Endurance". The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. A month later the ship was beset in the ice of the Weddell Sea just outside the Antarctic Circle, frozen. As the desolation of the eternal polar nights began, the temperature dropped to 35 degrees below zero. Ten months later, the "Endurance" was being crushed by the ice floes, and Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship. For seventeen months the crew, drifting on the ice pack and then on the stormiest seas on the globe, were castaways in this most savage region. The men were attacked by sea leopards, had to kill their beloved dogs whom they could no longer feed, and developed terrible frostbite - amputation of the foot of one member of the crew carried out on the ice.
Frank Hurley, photographer of the expedition, miraculously saved his negatives and photographs from destruction at each stage of the journey. These first-hand accounts and spectacular photographs provide an unsurpassable insight into the extraordinary spirit of Shackleton and his men, and their lasting civility towards one another in the most adverse conditions conceivable.
