The Endurance Shackletons Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
Brand: Alfred A. Knopf
Product Description
In August 1914 days before the outbreak of the First World War the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twentyseven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea they had come within eightyfive miles of their destination when their ship Endurance was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months and they would make two nearfatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue. Drawing upon previously unavailable sources Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackletons expeditionone of historys greatest epics of survival. And she presents the astonishing work of Frank Hurley the Australian photographer whose visual record of the adventure has never before been published comprehensively. Together text and image recreate the terrible beauty of Antarctica the awful destruction of the ship and the crews heroic daily struggle to stay alive a miracle achieved largely through Shackletons inspiring leadership. The survival of Hurleys remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous The original glass plate negatives from which most of the books illustrations are superbly reproduced were stored in hermetically sealed cannisters that survived months on the ice floes a week in an open boat on the polar seas and several more months buried in the snows of a rocky outcrop called Elephant Island. Finally Hurley was forced to abandon his professional equipment he captured some of the most unforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film. Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural Historys landmark exhibition on Shackletons journey The Endurance thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of explorationperhaps the greatest of them all. show more
Condition : New
Author : Caroline Alexander
Weight : 1061
Publisher : Alfred A. Knopf
Language : English
EAN : 9780375404030
ISBN10 : 0375404031
Format : Hardback
Date of Publication : 19980901
Place of Publication : New York United States
Pagination : 211
Dimensions : 212 X 239 X 22mm