In an age when it is fashionable to forget the achievements of the great explorers of the heroic age, comes the timely rebirth of this legendary book, penned by a band of brave British men whose wit and wisdom blazes like a sun beside todays lesser stars. In 1907 Ernest Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition to Antarctica. He established a base camp at Cape Royds on Ross Island and built a wooden hut to serve as headquarters. Because of his prior experience with Robert Scotts first expedition, Shackleton knew the sunless winter months spent in these cramped quarters would test the morale of his men, so he set several of them to work writing and printing the first book ever produced on the Antarctic continent. Containing fact, fiction, humour, prose and poetry, Aurora Australis, is one of the most extraordinary travel books ever written. It contains stories about the Antarctic wildlife, describes the harsh conditions suffered by the explorers and recounts their journey to the top of Mount Erebus, a nearby active volcano surrounded by ice. An estimated one hundred copies were originally Printed at the Sign of the Penguin by these gifted authors, the result of which is a unique symbol of the heroic age of exploration. Because of its rarity a first edition of Aurora Australis recently sold for more than $100,000. This special edition is being produced in an effort to raise awareness of the need to conserve the four huts used by the British explorers, along with the remarkable memorabilia and icebound supplies preserved within their frozen walls. Having endured nearly a century of harsh weather, these huts still symbolise the nobler aspects of human nature which took these talented and bravemen to Antarctica. The buildings are now considered to be some of the most endangered historic structures in the world.

In 1911 Roald Amundsen beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole, and Scott and his colleagues all died on the return journey. Ernest Shackleton, who had served with Scott on a previous expedition, decided that crossing Antarctica from sea to sea was the last great unattempted journey on the continent. His Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 was a failure. But perhaps because it failed, with Shackleton not only surviving but bringing his crew back alive, the expedition became more famous than many of those adventurous voyages that succeeded. After reaching the Weddell Sea off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, Shackleton's ship the Endurance became trapped in pack ice and spent 1915 drifting northwards. The Endurance was eventually crushed by the ice and sank, leaving 28 men stranded on the ice. They spent months sheltering from the subzero temperatures as the pack ice continued to drift. Eventually Shackleton accepted they could not rely on rescue and had to help themselves, so he led five men on an 800-mile voyage in an open boat to reach South Georgia, from where he was able to mount a rescue of all of the men he had left behind on the ice. Every one of them survived - a remarkable tribute to his leadership, courage and determination. South is Shackleton's own account of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It is a true story of courageous endurance, survival against the odds and an undeterred sense of adventure. This special edition includes detailed maps so that the reader can see just how extraordinary Shackleton's achievement was, and a specially written Foreword by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, introducing the book from an explorer's perspective.

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was perhaps the most ambitious, elaborate and confident of all the British attempts to master the South Pole. Like the others it ended in disaster, with the Endeavour first trapped and then crushed to pieces in the ice and its crew trapped in the Antarctic, seemingly doomed to a slow and horrible death. In the face of extraordinary odds, Shackleton, the expedition's leader, decided on the only course that might just save them: a 700 nautical mile voyage in a small boat across the ferocious Southern Ocean in the forelorn hope of reaching the only human habitation within range: a small whaling station on the rugged, ice-sheeted island of South Georgia. South tells the story both of the whole astonishing expedition and of Shackleton's journey to rescue his men - one of the greatest feats of navigation ever recorded.

A blow by blow journal of an amazing journey, an ice-bound adventure, an incredible feat of exploration, and an unbelievably intrepid leader. A thriller you wouldn't believe in a novel - but it happened! Can they really survive? Impossible??

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