About the Author

Kelly Tyler-Lewis, a historian, is Visiting Scholar of the Scott Polar Research Institute of the University of Cambridge, England. Her research took her to Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica, where she spent two months with the U.S. Antarctic Program.

Reviews

Painstakingly researched and electrifyingly written . . . a brutal and inspiring tale of adventure and endurance. (Men’s Journal)

A gripping story embracing both tragedy and triumph. (The New York Times Book Review)

Historian Tyler-Lewis (visiting scholar, Scott Polar Research Inst., Cambridge) draws on previously unpublished journals to enrich our knowledge of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, whose ship, the Endurance, famously stranded his 28 crew members for 22 months. Less attention has been paid to the expedition's separate supply team, known as the Ross Sea Party, which was tasked to support Shackleton's crossing with a lifeline of food and fuel depots. When the Ross Sea Party's ship, the Aurora, was swept out to sea by a storm while ten men were ashore, leaving them marooned with scant supplies, the men agreed "that the one object that must be obtained, no matter what else was sacrificed, was to place food depots forShackleton's party." Tyler-Lewis notes in her prolog that to a modern observer, the Ross Sea Party's journey to supply an expedition that "never arrived" might have seemed "for naught" (unlike the members of Shackleton's party, they did not all survive), but the Ross Sea Party did not necessarily see it that way. Recommended for all libraries with an interest in true adventures or polar exploration.-Robert C. Jones, formerly with Central Missouri State Univ., Warrensburg Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Painstakingly researched and electrifyingly written . . . a brutal and inspiring tale of adventure and endurance. (Men's Journal)

A gripping story embracing both tragedy and triumph. (The New York Times Book Review)