NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Shackleton's "South"
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2009 Mar 4, 10:22 -0700
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From: Dan Allen
Date: 2009 Mar 4, 10:22 -0700
On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 2:21 PM, George Huxtable <george@hux.me.uk> wrote:
A promising candidate seems to be "South: The Story of Shackleton's Last
Expedition in the Antarctic", a paperback published in the US by the Lyons
Press in 1998, which claims to offer "70 photos & line drawings" ISBN
9781558217836 , which I can buy cheaply. I wonder if any Navlist member
happens to have a copy, and can recommend it or otherwise. Or alternatively,
any other version that appears to be complete.
I have a similar but different version. It claims 88 photos and line drawings, but the list of photos in the front of the book only lists about 44 photos. Maps are not listed, but as I thumbed through the book a moment ago I did notice quite a few line drawings and maps.
My version is entitled "South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage" and was published by Carroll & Graf, New York, NY in 1998. It is a paperback 380 pages long.
Chapters include: Into the Weddell Sea; New Land; Winter Months; Loss of the Endurance; Ocean Camp; The March Between; Patience Camp; Escape from the Ice; The Boat Journey; Across South Georgia; The Rescue; Elephant Island; The Ross Sea Party; Wintering in McMurdo Sound; Laying the Depots; The Aurora's Drift; The Last Relief; The Final Phase. Appendix I details scientific work, sea-ice nomenclature, meteorology, physics, and South Atlantic whales and whaling. Appendix II details the expedition huts at McMurdo Sound.
None of the photos are reproduced in very high quality, but the drawings are not too bad. If you really want great photos, look for "South with Endurance: The Photographs of Frank Hurley", Book Creation Services Ltd., New York, NY, a large coffee-table sized book.
I also liked F.A. Worsley's account in "Endurance: An Epic of Polar Adventure", published by W. W. Norton in New York, NY, originally in 1931, my reprint is 1999, softcover, 310 pp. The forward in my edition is by Patrick O’Brian. Frank Worsley was the captain and navigator of Shackleton’s Endurance from 1914-1916, who together visited Elephant Island, South Georgia, the Ross Sea. Worsley died in 1943.
My favorite quote related to Shackleton is this one by Priestly:
"For scientific leadership, give me Scott, for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen. But when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton. Incomparable in adversity, he was the miracle worker who would save your life against all the odds and long after your number was up. The greatest leader that ever came on God's earth, bar none."
Sir Raymond Priestley
Member of the Nimrod expedition 1907-1909
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Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc
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