South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917

Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir, 1874-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.6
Word count
825K words
Chapters
83

Tags

English Originals Documentary Literature Human GeographyNature ObservationLeadershipAdventure JourneyGeography ScienceDocumentary Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917; Includes both textAuthor: Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir, 1874-1922,Language: English, Class: G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

Shackleton's own first-hand account of the 1914–1917 Endurance expedition and a classic of polar exploration literature. Writing in the first person, he records the ship's entrapment in the ice, the abandonment, the struggle for survival, and the eventual rescue of every man—restrained in tone, rich in detail, with observations on navigation and ice conditions alongside a record of crew management and crisis decisions. Its value lies not in sensationalism but in showing how organizational order is maintained under extreme conditions: division of labor, morale, allocation of supplies, and decision-making responsibility are all set down faithfully. The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain electronic text, convenient for searching names, places, and timelines, and suited to slow reading alongside a map. It can serve as supplementary material for the history of exploration and maritime history, or as a casebook on leadership and team management; the English is slightly dated, so annotated editions read more smoothly.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and timeline, marking the route and drift on an Antarctic map.
  2. Read one or two chapters a day, noting crew roles and key decision points as you go.
  3. Skip unfamiliar nautical and ice terminology at first, then look it up after each chapter.
  4. After finishing, revisit the abandonment and rescue passages to trace the steps of the crisis response.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
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  15. 15
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  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
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  22. 22
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  24. 24
  25. 25
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83

FAQ

Is this a novel or a first-hand record? It is Shackleton's own account of the 1914–1917 Endurance expedition, a first-hand historical text rather than a work of fiction.
Is the original English hard to read, and what level is needed? The text is early twentieth-century English, with long sentences and nautical and ice terminology. Readers with university-level English who are willing to look up words will find it accessible; a map and annotations help a great deal.
What are the features of the Gutenberg edition? Gutenberg provides a free public-domain electronic text, convenient for full-text searches and excerpts and suited to building a timeline alongside a map; it usually lacks modern annotations and illustrations, so readers must supply background themselves.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir, 1874-1922 Author

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874–1922) was a renowned polar explorer whose name is closely associated with Antarctic exploration in the early twentieth century. Two of his works are held in this collection, including South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914–1917, an account of the Endurance expedition, and the Dutch edition Het dichtste bij de Zuidpool. These works record voyages, icebound hardship, and survival in extreme conditions from a first-hand perspective, combining authentic expedition records with considerable literary readability. Shackleton's writing is plain and direct, and his narratives of adversity highlight teamwork and perseverance; his expedition accounts remain important texts in polar and adventure literature. Because public information is limited, his early life and specific biographical details are not elaborated here.