In August 1914, days before the outbreak of World War I, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 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 85 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 20 months, and they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue.Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition -- one of history's 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 re-create the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle to stay alive, a miracle achieved largely through Shackleton's inspiring leadership.The survival of Hurley's remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous: The original glass plate negatives, from which most of the book's illustrations are superbly reproduced, were stored in hermetically sealed canisters 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 mostunforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film.Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's landmark exhibition on Shackleton's journey, "The Endurance" thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration -- perhaps the greatest of them all.
- ISBN:
- 9780375404030
- 9780375404030
-
Category:
- Biography: historical
- Format:
- Hardback
- Publication Date:
-
15-12-2014
- Language:
- English
- Publisher:
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Country of origin:
- United States
- Pages:
- 211
- Dimensions (mm):
- 248x222x21mm
- Weight:
- 0.93kg
This title is in stock with our overseas supplier and should be sent from our Sydney warehouse within 3 - 4 weeks of you placing an order.
Once received into our warehouse we will despatch it to you with a Shipping Notification which includes online tracking.
Please check the estimated delivery times below for your region, for after your order is despatched from our warehouse:
ACT Metro 2 working days
NSW Metro 2 working days
NSW Rural 2-3 working days
NSW Remote 2-5 working days
NT Metro 3-6 working days
NT Remote 4-10 working days
QLD Metro 2-4 working days
QLD Rural 2-5 working days
QLD Remote 2-7 working days
SA Metro 2-5 working days
SA Rural 3-6 working days
SA Remote 3-7 working days
TAS Metro 3-6 working days
TAS Rural 3-6 working days
VIC Metro 2-3 working days
VIC Rural 2-4 working days
VIC Remote 2-5 working days
WA Metro 3-6 working days
WA Rural 4-8 working days
WA Remote 4-12 working days
Share This Book: