![]() No documentary evidence of this has been found, but this is the point where the story of 'South' begins. Shackleton claimed that he had a promise of funds from a 'Mr Alfred Harvey'. In early December of 1913 Shackleton's mood was lifted when Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer promised him £10,000 to finance his 'Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition' if he could raise a matching sum. The publication of another book 'Scott's last expedition' again put Shackleton's achievements in the background, showing Scott to be a national hero. By the time news reached Great Britain that Amundsen had reached the pole (ahead of Scott) on 14 December 1911, having taken months for news to filter through, all of Shackleton financial schemes had come to nothing and he was leading an unsettled life.īy 1913 the whole country was grieving after news that Scott and his companions had perished on their way back from the South Pole. ![]() When Scott set off on his second Antarctic expedition in the summer of 1910 backed by a government grant of £20,000, Shackelton was left behind saddled with personal financial problems. His writing never came to be regarded as national treasures in the way Scott's Diaries did. Unlike Robert Falcon Scott, Shackleton wasn't a natural writer as he once confessed to his wife Emily in a letter, part of which is quoted above. He had made them pledge to assign their copyright to him before they left. The book also includes substantial quotations from the diaries of other expedition members. 'South' was dictated to Saunders but his contribution was so significant that Shackleton had wanted to put his name alongside his own on the title page.Īlthough he wrote much of the text himself after listening to Shackleton Saunders' wrote: 'My work was complimentary to his'. The book was ghostwritten by New Zealand journalist Edward Saunders who had also helped Shackleton write 'The Heart of the Antarctic', an account of his 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition. It was published in 1919, three years after he returned from Antarctic and it's rarely been out of print since. It was on his third expedition as leader, an attempt to circumnavigate Antarctica, that Shackleton died of a heart attack on 5 January 1922 at the age of 47.Shackleton's account of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition, 'South' was meant to be a factual record of the epic journey. A gifted writer, his polar memoirs The Heart of the Antarctic and South stand testament both to his heroic leadership and his talent for storytelling. After the Endurance was crushed by the ice, Shackleton undertook a perilous 800-mile journey in an open boat to South Georgia to secure the rescue of his men. Shackleton’s exemplary leadership skills again proved crucial when his next expedition, the Endurance Expedition of 1914–17 – an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic – became a desperate fight for survival. He returned a national hero and was knighted by King Edward VII. He came within 97 miles of the Pole, the farthest south reached by any expedition, but had to turn back to save his men from starvation. ![]() The first he led was the 1907–09 British Antarctic ( Nimrod) Expedition. He served as a junior officer in Captain Scott's 1901–04 Discovery Expedition and went on to mount three expeditions of his own. An exceptional leader, Ernest Shackleton is amongst the greatest Antarctic explorers. ![]()
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