The BBC News Magazine of 24 February 2016 has an article by Paul Kerley which lists the books found in a photograph of the book shelves in Shackleton’s cabin aboard Endurance. The titles were deciphered from a digitized image of the shelves in Shackleton’s cabin. The list consists primarily of mostly undistinguished light fiction, about a dozen reference works, and a smattering of books of Arctic (not Antarctic) exploration
Presented here are the listings from the photograph, here presented alphabetically by author first, or then by title, in what I believe were the most likely editions. All information in this list is taken from OCLC’s WorldCat. The speculative title choices are my own, based on the likely choice of London editions and proximity in time to the departure of Endurance from Plymouth on August 8, 1914.
Books in Shackleton’s Cabin aboard Endurance
Amundsen, Roald, 1872-1928. The Northwest Passage: being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship; “Gjöa’, 1903-1907. Two vols. London: Constable, 1908.
Askew, John Bertham. Pros and Cons: A Newspaper Reader’s and Debater’s Guide to the Leading Controversies of the Day. London: Constable, 1912.
Atherton, Gertrude, 1857-1948. Perch of the Devil. London: John Murray, 1914.
Beach, Rex, 1877-1949. The Barrier. London: Harper and Row, 1908.
Bell, J. J., 1871-1934. Thou Fool. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903.
Bennett, Arnold, 1861-1931. The Grand Babylon Hotel. A Fantasia of Modern Themes. London: Chatto and Windus, 1902.
Benham, W. Gurney, Sir, 1859-1944. Cassell’s Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words. London: Cassell, 1907.
Benson, Robert Hugh, 1871-1914. Oddsfish. London: Hutchinson, 1914.
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham, 1810-1897. The Reader’s Handbook of Famous Names in Fiction, Allusions, References, Proverbs, Plots, Stories, and Poems. London: Chatto and Windus, 1911.
Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924. Almeyer’s Folly. London: Collins, 1900.
Bone, David. The Brassbounder. Gregory, Lady, 1852-1932. Seven Short Plays. London: G. P. Putnam’s, 1909.
Cassell’s New German Dictionary in Two Parts: German-English, English German. Edited by Elizabeth Weir. London: Cassell, 1906.
Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language. Edinburgh: Chambers, 1908.
Collinson, Richard, 1811-1883. Journal of HMS Enterprise, on the Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin’s Ships by Behring Straits 1850-55…. London: Sampson Low, 1889.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. by Constance Garnett. London: Heinemann, 1912?
Dreyfus, Alfred, 1859-1935. Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899. London: Newnes, 1901.
Encyclopedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Clark, 1875-1903. Ninth edition with new volumes from the Tenth Edition.
Flowerdew, Herbert. The Woman’s View: A Novel about Marriage. London, 1903.
Fowler, Henry Watson, 1858-1933, Editor. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912.
Glass, Montague Marsden, 1877-1934. Potash and Perlmutter: Their Co-Partnership, Ventures and Adventures. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914.
Greely, Adolphus Washington, 1844-1935. Three Years of Arctic Service: An Account of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881-84, and the Attainment of the Farthest North. Two vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1886.
Hey, Ian. [John H. Beith]. Pip. Pip was published in 1907, under the pseudonym of Ian Hey; I find no copies listed before the Endurance voyage.
Hornung, E. W. 1866-1921. Raffles: The Amateur Craftsman. London: E. Nash, 1911.
Kane, Elisha Kent, 1820-1857. United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin. A Personal Narrative. Philadelphia: Childs and Peterson, 1856.
Leonard, Robert Maynard. A Book of Light Verse. London: H. Frowde, 1910.
Locke, William J. The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne. London: Bodley Head, 1907.
Lubbock, Basil, 1876-1944. Round the Horn before the Mast. London: John Murray, 1907.
Markham, Clemens R., Sir, 1830-1916. The Threshold of the Unknown Region. Fourth ed. London: Sampson Low, 1876.
Mason, Alfred Edward Woodley, 1865-1948. The Witness for the Defense. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1913.
McClintock, Francis Leopold, 1819-1907. The Voyage of the “Fox” in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of Discovery of the Fate of John Franklin and His Companions. London with several editions from 1859.
Nares, George S., 1831-1915. Narrative of a Voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875-6 in H M Ships ‘Alert’ and ‘Discovery’. Two vols. London: Low Marston, 1878.
Nesfield, John Collinson. Manual of English Grammar and Composition. London: Macmillan, 1898.
Nordenskjöld, Adolf Erik, 1832-1901. The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe. Trans. by Alexander Leslie. Two Vols. London: Macmillan, 1881.
Orczy, Emmuska, Baroness, 1865-1947. The Case of Miss Elliott. London: Greenfield, 1909.
Patrick, David and Francis Hindes Groome, Editors. Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary; the Great of All Times and Nations. London: Chambers, 1912.
Reves, Amélie, 1863-1945. World’s End. Third Edition. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1914.
Schley, Winfield Scott, 1839-1911. The Rescue of Greely. London: Sampson, Low, 1885.
Shaw, George Bernard, 1856-1950. Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant. Vol. II. Pleasant Plays. London: Constable, 1911?
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822. The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Two vols. London: Dent, 1907. Everyman Library.
Stacpoole, H. De Vere, 1863-1951. Monsieur de Rochefort: A Romance of Old Paris. London: Hutchinson, 1914.
Tracy, Louis, 1863-1928. The Message of Fate. London: Ward, Lock, 1910.
Whitaker’s Almanac. London: Whitaker, 19?? Presumably Shackleton would have had a fairly current edition of this annual publication.