The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic expedition.

Alexander, Caroline. New York: Knopf, 1998.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A succinct and well-illustrated account of the epic voyage, though not without faults (e.g. she doesn’t have Cherry in Scott’s SP journey, there is no index, and citations are wholly inadequate). But she does use Hurley photographs to good effect.

The American on the Endurance: Ice, Sea, and Terra Firma Adventures of William L. Bakewell.

Bakewell, William L. [Edited by Mary Elizabeth Rajala.] Munising, MI: Dukes Hall Publishing, 2004.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Homespun memoir of a footloose and feckless wanderer from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, who happened to be in Buenos Aires in 1914 when Shackleton was looking for an able bodied seaman and took Bakewell on for the voyage.

Shackleton’s Forgotten Men: The Untold Tragedy of the Endurance Epic. [1914-17].

Bickel, Lennard. Foreword by Rt. Hon. Lord Shackleton. New York, Thunder’s Mouth Press and Balliett & Fitzgerald, 2000. (Adrenaline classics).
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 72, May 6, 1915: Outside, they heard the bluster grow to gale force winds. Irvine Gaze and Stevens went early to their bunks. Spencer-Smith, as ever, was reading a book by the light of the acetylene lamp.

The Boss

Cherry-Garrard, Apsley. Nation (December 1919) p. 396, 398.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Review by Cherry-Garrard of Shackleton’s South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition 1914-1917, though not a very substantial one. J.M. Wordie found it very irritating, according to some notes at NLS.

The Diaries of Frank Hurley, 1912-1941.

Hurley, Frank. Edited by Robert Dixon and Christopher Lee. London: Anthem Press, 2011. P. 1-58.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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These diaries cover most of Hurley’s life, but the following notes are only from his Antarctic experience with Shackleton.

Shackleton’s Argonauts: A Saga of the Antarctic Icepacks.

Hurley, Frank. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1948.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 72-73: While on the subject of salvage [from the dying Endurance], I might add that I recovered the volumes of the encyclopaedia from the chief’s cabin and a large part of my own personal library, as well as several packs of cards. Many a day we had cause to bless the fact. What tedious hours were whiled away in reading; what wonderful and purely imaginary fortunes changed hands at poker patience.

South with Endurance: Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917, the Photographs of Frank Hurley.

Hurley, Frank. London: Bloomsbury, 2001.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This book has a wider focus than the title implies, including more material on Hurley’s photographic career than his Antarctic photographs. But it covers the Antarctic work well, from archives of RGS, the State Library of New South Wales, and of SPRI, Cambridge.

Diary, Nov 5, 1914 to Dec 1915

[Author?]. SPRI MS 1605/1/2. [in SPRI numbering, this comes after the later 1916 volume described below.].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
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p. 33 Jan 12th 1915: Started reading “Guinea Gold” by Beatrice Grimshaw.

Diary typescript 14th January 1916 to 4th Sept 1916.

[Author?]. SPRI M 1605/1/1. [in SPRI numbering, this comes before the earlier 1914 volume described above.].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Patience Camp. This diary covers period from Patience Camp to rescue at Elephant Island.

South with Shackleton.

Hussey, L. D. A. London: Sampson Low [1949].
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A rather saccharine account of Endurance and Shackleton, with very little critical self-assessment. Nonetheless, it mainly conforms to most stories of the expedition.

Diaries.

James, Reginald. SPRI MS 1537/3/2/.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Physicist on the Endurance. Kept diaries which he presumably turned over to Shackleton as he was contracted to do.

Obituary.

James, Reginald. Online.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
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Throughout most of the expedition, James regularly kept a diary, and his account of the time spent on Elephant Island gives perhaps the best insight into what conditions were really like for the 22 men left stranded there. Paper being scarce, he was forced to write some of his diary on spare pages in the copy of Lang’s Translation of the “Iliad”, which was one of the few books the men rescued from the sinking Endurance. The book is still in the safe keeping of the James family. His diary includes a number of maps and sketches.

The South Polar Trail.

Joyce, Ernest Edward Mills. London: Duckworth, 1929.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
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A participant’s account of Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party, the party assigned to place depots between the Beardmore Glacier and Cape Evans, for Shackleton’s proposed transit from the South Pole to the Ross Sea. The depots were placed successfully but the transit never happened. Three men died on this part of Shackleton’s expedition, thus placing an asterisk on the frequent claim that Shackleton never lost a man.

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1959.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Lansing was an American journalist who interviewed all of the survivors of the Expedition from the 1950s and used all of the extant journals (mostly at SPRI) to write this amazing book.

Typed transcript of Endurance journal, 1914-15 and 1915-16.

Macklin, Alexander Hepburn. SPRI MS 1589. In two volumes, second vol. starting on Oct 15th, 1915.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 7, Nov 3, 1915 Wedn, after smashup: At the ship I entered Clark’s cabin which is just above water and got some books for him.