Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Setting sail as World War I broke out in Europe, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, led by renowned polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, hoped to become the first to cross the Antarctic continent. But their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the drifting pack ice, eventually to splinter, leaving the expedition stranded on floes--a situation that seemed "not merely desperate but impossible."

Most skillfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was "neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was "full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. The account successfully reveals the seldom-seen domestic world of expedition life--the singsongs, feasts, lectures, camaraderie--so that when the hardships set in, we know these people beyond the stereotypical guise of mere explorers and long for their safety.

Alexander reveals Shackleton as an inspiring optimist, "a leader who put his men first." Throughout the grueling ordeal, Shackleton and his men show what endurance and greatness are all about. The Endurance is a most intimate portrait of an expedition and of survival. Readers will possess a newfound respect for these daring souls, know better their unthinkable toil and half-forgotten realm of glory. --Byron Ricks


Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Narrators Michael Tezla and Martin Ruben join forces to read Caroline Alexander's extraordinary account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's improbable Antarctic adventure. Tezla narrates the text while Ruben reads diary entries from the ship's crewmembers, employing a variety of native accents. The approach effectively divides the book into listener-friendly chunks, but at times, keeping track of all 27 crewmen requires the fortitude of the explorers themselves. Tezla describes the ice and snow with a haunting beauty but manages maintain the tension throughout, while Ruben injects character and humor into his various vocal interpretations. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --Kimberly Heinrichs


From Publishers Weekly
The unparalleled adventure and ordeal of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew, stranded on the Antarctic ice for 20 months beginning January 20, 1915, then forced to row a 22-foot boat 850 miles across storm-ravaged seas, has inspired at least three marvelous books: Shackleton's own memoir, South; Alfred Lansing's bestselling Endurance; and this stirring account by Alexander (The Way to Xanadu). In 1914, Shackleton sailed to Antarctica with 27 men in hopes of being the first human to transverse the continent. But his ship, the Endurance, was trapped, then crushed, by ice in the Weddell Sea, propelling the party into a nightmare of cold and near starvation. Alexander, relying extensively on journals by crew members, some never published, as well as on myriad other sources, delivers a spellbinding story of human courage (and occasional venality) in the face of daunting odds. She succinctly and boldly captures the character of the men and of the terrible land- and seascape they crossed toward salvation. What makes this book especially exciting, however, are the 170 previously unpublished photos by the expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley: stark, artfully composed tributes to the savage beauty of the ice and to the fortitude of the men and their dogs. Not one of the men died during their sojourn in a freezing hell; as Alexander makes clear in her gripping, emotionally resonant book, this incredible fact bears witness not only to Shackleton's leadership but to the strength of the human spirit. Agent, Anthony Sheil. Author tour. (Nov.) FYI: The Endurance is being published in association with the American Museum of Natural History, which in March 1999 will open an exhibit, curated by Alexander, chronicling Shackleton's voyage. A feature-length IMAX film on the subject will be released then, as well.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
During Shackleton's 1914 expedition to Antarctica, he and his crew were trapped on ice floes for 20 months. Alexander is curating a forthcoming exhibition on their plight.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review
"Thrilling...! One of the greatest adventure stories of our times."


USA Today, 8/5/99, Deirdre Donahue
"...this is one of the best listening experiences available...This is a tape that both parents and children will love..."


From Booklist
A glorious failure, Ernest Shackleton's attempt to become the first transcontinental trekker of Antarctica turned into one of the all-time survival stories in the annals of adventure. Shackleton, an imperturbable leader, was also a savvy promoter who before embarking sold publishing rights and signed on a skilled photographer. Unfortunately for commercial aspirations, World War I deadened contemporary interest in Shackleton's story of being marooned on ice floes and islands for two years. But with the distance of time and an excellent narrator in Alexander, the epic achieves its stature. It developed after Shackleton, who came within 100 miles of being the first man to reach the South Pole in 1909, organized his new quest for glory. Instead of landing as planned, his ship Endurance became icebound in the Weddell Sea; the photographs of that predicament depict a beautiful tragedy--the ship, a doomed maiden, slowly crushed and sunk by the ice. Thus began the precarious retreat to civilization, which Alexander extols, citing the fortitude, resourcefulness, and luck of the crew, highlighted by Shackleton's 800-mile voyage to South Georgia, crossing the world's stormiest seas in an open lifeboat. An exhilarating retelling of a most popular saga in polar exploration. Gilbert Taylor


From Kirkus Reviews
The saga of the Endurance and her crewShackleton's Antarctic fiasco turned heroic melodramais discovered anew through the expeditions previously unpublished photos and Alexander's (The Way to Xanadu, 1994, etc.) well-turned storytelling. The Heroic Age was coming to a close when Sir Ernest Shackleton took off in pursuit of one of exploration's last prizes: the crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. But his boat never made its intended southernmost harbor. Instead, it got stuck in ice in the Weddell Sea, abode of 200-mile-per-hour winds and 100-degree-below-zero temperatures. Thus began two years of chilly misfortune, met by the crew's perseverance, and conveyed by Alexander in an elegant, subdued manner: The eerie portents of the ice close ever tighter around the Endurance, the helpless, hopeless, endless days follow one another on the ice pack, and finally Shackleton makes an outrageous bid to reach South Georgia Island, 900 miles distant, in one of the abandoned mother ship's small boatsthrough a hurricane, no less. Accompanying the expedition, luckily, was photographer James Hurley, who was to chronicle the exploit visually both for scientific purposes and entertainment value. His images, which miraculously survived the ordeal, give the story an added palpability in time and space. Many of the photographs are not only quite beautiful, particularly of the Endurance as it sits icebound yet under desperate full sail, but also moving, with crew members putting on their best faces as death sat waiting just outside the picture frame. Published in conjunction with an exhibition about the expedition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, this book occupies a prize spot in the already abundant literature of polar exploration. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven 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 eighty-five 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 near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue.

SYNOPSIS

In the summer of 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 left England for the South Pole. When they returned, more than two years later, they told an unbelievable story of survival. They lost their ship. They spent a winter on the polar ice. They had to eat their dogs. They sailed hundreds of miles of the most hostile seas on earth in small, open boats. And they all survived.The Endurance uses the words and images of the expedition members themselves to re-create the 22 months the men spent stranded in Antarctica.

FROM THE CRITICS

Tony Gibbs - Islands Magazine

Alexander's book brings to enthralling, inspiring life one of the great adventures of all time.

New Yorker

Elegantly told.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - The New York Times

Evokes the beauty and the terror of the Antarctic, the eerie landscape of ice blocks piling up like sugar cubes, the sound of emperor penguins crying soulfully as if lamenting the breakup of the Endurance.

Patrick Reardon - Chicago Tribune

T.A story of will, courage and grit. What makes it even more stirring are the starkly elegant images.

Atlantic Monthly