Shackleton / Roland Huntford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Huntford, Roland, 1927-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir, 1874-1922.

Shackleton, Ernest Henry.

Antarctica--Discovery and exploration.

Antarctica.

Discoveries in geography.

Explorers--Great Britain--Biography.

Explorers.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xx, 774 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First Carroll and Graf edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Carroll & Graf, 1998.

Summary:

In 1915, while the Great War embroiled Europe, the world waited for news of the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton's latest expedition but had given him up for lost. Shackleton's near-miraculous survival for nine months on the ice-packed Antarctic seas -- capped with an open-boat journey across more than 700 miles of the most dangerous weather in the South Atlantic -- has made him synonymous with courage and endurance.

Roland Huntford, acclaimed biographer of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, masterfully chronicles the life of one of the last great Edwardian heroes, from his Anglo-Irish childhood to his rivalry with Scott and Amundsen in the quest for the pole. Although Shackleton was knighted for having reached "Farthest South," a hundred miles from his goal, in 1909, he was as much a social adventurer as an explorer, not to mention an inveterate womanizer and dubious financier. Whatever the mix of hero and rogue in his character, as one of his colleagues summed him up, "When you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

Contents:

Prologue: "Great Shack!" 3

I Anglo-Irish background 4

II Round the Horn 13

III A path to fame and fortune? 24

IV National Antarctic Expedition 31

V Discovery 45

VI A protean world of ice 51

VIII Polar travel 64

VIII Polar night 70

IX Dogs and diet 79

X The southern journey 88

XI Race for life 104

XII Invalided home 114

XIII A new and better path? 119

XIV "An east-windy, west-endy place" 129

XV Prospects, but no work 140

XVI British Antarctic Expedition, 1907 158

XVII Seven months to prepare 167

XVIII When Nimrod sailed 178

XIX A broken promise 187

XX McMurdo Sound 208

XXI The conquest of Mount Erebus 219

XXII Midwinter 229

XXIII "A glorious day for our start" 239

XXIV Furthest South 249

XXV March or die 275

XXVI National Hero 293

XXVII Sir Ernest's debts 304

XXVIII Hungarian mines 321

XXIX "A bit of a floating gent" 331

XXX Endurance 364

XXXI South Georgia 383

XXXII Pack ice at 59[degree]28' 399

XXXIII Two helpless hulks 412

XXXIV "The secret of our unanimity" 421

XXXV Death agony of Endurance 439

XXXVI Responsibility to Shackleton 449

XXXVII "So now we'll go home" 454

XXXVIII From Ocean Camp to Patience Camp 465

XXXIX Escape by a hair's breadth 480

XL "We can only wait and see" 488

XLI Into the open sea 503

XLII Half-way house 520

XLIII Tension on Elephant Island 528

XLIV Relief preparations 542

XLV The open-boat journey 546

XLVI A slight change of course 563

XLVII The line that divides success from failure 566

XLVIII King Haakon Bay 573

XLIX The crossing of South Georgia 581

L A trio of scarecrows 597

LI "Urgent need immediate rescue" 604

LII Cape Wild 620

LIII Aurora and the end of the expedition 626

LIV South America and Northern Russia 649

LV Quest 673

Epilogue: The Fourth Presence 695.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0786705442

OCLC:

38862463