Of course, not everybody was impressed: in some circles, Shackleton’s planned undertaking – a several-thousand-mile journey through extreme conditions – was criticized not only for being too “daring,” but also for being practically “impossible.” Perhaps it had been both. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys – the crossing of the continent.” It will be a greater journey than the journey to the Pole and back, and I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this, for we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. “From the sentimental point of view,” Shackleton wrote once while soliciting funds for his expedition, “it is the last great polar journey that can be made. It was not just a matter of personal achievement at this point – it was a matter of national pride. He wanted to become the first person to cross Antarctica from one side to the other, that is to say, from the Wendell Sea via Vahsel Bay and the South Pole to McMurdo Sound.

So, as soon as the tragic news reached his ears, he turned his attention to the “one great object of Antarctic journeyings” remaining: a transatlantic voyage.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, one of Scott’s former captains, was just too restless and resolute to admit defeat or to accept that the Age of Exploration was effectively over. The country had lost everything in just a few weeks: its naval prestige, its hero, and its objectives. To make matters worse, soon after, England was saddened with the news that Scott died while attempting to journey back. The country’s record for exploration “had been perhaps unparalleled among the nations of the Earth,” and now they had to take “a humiliating second-best” to a much less-renowned country. When Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the Farthest South latitude on Decem– about a month before a British expedition led by renowned explorer Robert Falcon Scott achieved the same – the United Kingdom didn’t take the news lightly. The audacious plan of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton So, get ready for a frighteningly freezing adventure and join us as we follow Shackleton on one of the most incredible voyages in history. Also, it’s not about reaching the South Pole, but about something even more daunting: crossing the entire inhospitable continent from sea to sea. Set during this age, Alfred Lansing’s classic, “Endurance,” is not about the period’s most famous protagonists such as Roald Amundsen or Robert Falcon Scott – but about one of Scott’s officers, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton. To history buffs and readers of exploration literature, this period is primarily known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. First discovered by a Russian expedition in 1820, the continent of Antarctica became an object of fascination for numerous explorers around the world during the first two decades of the 20th century.

Alfred lansing books