|
Sir Ernest Shackleton - DVD's and Videos, Books and
Pictures
|
Shackleton's expeditions: |
|
|
DVD and Video |
|
 Shackleton
(2001)
Dramatization
The highly acclaimed film of Shackleton's 1914
ill fated attempt to cross Antarctica via the South Pole and the
subsequent heroic adventure. Starring Kenneth Branagh, magnificent as
Shackleton with Lorcan Cranitch and Mark McGann as his loyal lieutenants
Frank Wild and Tom Crean. The ice scenes and atmosphere of the deep south are wonderfully
portrayed.
DVD
VHS
DVD VHS |
 South
- Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition
(1919)
Original footage
The
actual footage shot by Frank Hurley on Shackleton's
ill fated Trans-Antarctic expedition. Hurley's camera work gives a
good indication of what the 28 men endured. No drama could take the place of the
actual footage from the expedition seen in this documentary. It is
spellbinding. Lack of the men's voices (it is the 1910's after all) and
lack of narration is no impediment, the pictures tell the story well
enough, and the piano soundtrack just adds to the feeling of time gone by.
DVD
VHS
DVD VHS |
 Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure (2001)
IMAX dramatization The only
documentary that traces the actual steps of the explorers' blessed journey.
While providing a concise summary of the Shackleton team's 1914-16
expedition, this breathtaking IMAX feature employs exacting re-creations and
flyover footage (from 1999 and 2000) of the same harsh landscapes that
Shackleton and his men traversed, by land and sea, during their ill-fated
voyage. As with most IMAX films, climactic moments are driven by a bombastic
score, and the harshest facts of the Shackleton journey (e.g., sacrificing
beloved dogs for food and euthanasia) are omitted for family viewing. What
matters here are the visuals (both vintage and contemporary), and they're
absolutely magnificent, conveying the sheer horror--and divine beauty--of
the greatest survival story of all time.
DVD
VHS
DVD |
 The Endurance - Shackleton's Legendary
Antarctic Expedition (2000)
PBS NOVA, dramatization with original footage
A retelling of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated expedition
to Antarctica in 1914-1916, featuring new footage of the actual locations
and interviews with surviving relatives of key expedition members, plus
archived audio interviews with expedition members and a generous helping of
the footage and still photos shot on the expedition. Narrated by Liam
Neeson.
DVD
VHS
DVD |
|
Books |
Star book
Endurance, The Greatest Adventure Story Ever Told
Alfred Lansing (Preface)
Buy USA
Audiobook
Buy UK
Audiobook
Ernest Shackleton never lost a single man
in Antarctica. This is the story that begin with the epic intent of being
the first to cross the Antarctic continent. Shackleton and his men never
even came close to the pole, but theirs was one of the greatest adventures
of all time.
His ship, Endurance, was trapped and then
crushed by sea ice, leaving Shackleton and 27 men adrift on ice floes. The
story of how Shackleton saved all of them and reached South Georgia Island
is one of the epics in the history of survival. A story so incredible that if it were written as fiction it
would probably be regarded as too fantastic to be taken seriously. |
Star book
South
with Endurance: Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition, 1914-1917
Frank
Hurley
Buy
USA
Buy UK
Frank
Hurley, a young Australian photographer was crucial to the 1914-1917
expedition, not least in that it was the promised sale of the photographs
after the voyage that provided for a substantial amount of the funding.
The book is an oversized collection featuring all of
the official photographer's pictures (including several previously
unpublished color plates). The stark black and white images of the ship
and its men caught in an ocean of ice are both beautiful and chilling.
Photography buffs, historians and
adventure lovers alike will relish the images from one who was surely one
of history's greatest documentary photographers. There are almost 500
photos in black and white and colour.
If you are a fan of
Antarctic exploration then this wonderful book should be in your library.
|
|
 Shackleton's Boat Journey
F.A.
Worsley
Buy USA
Buy UK
On 1 August 1914, on the eve of World War I, Sir Ernest Shackleton and
his hand-picked crew embarked in HMS Endurance from London's West
India Dock, for an expedition to the Antarctic. It was to turn into one
of the most breathtaking survival stories of all time. Even as they
coasted down the channel, Shackleton wired back to London to offer his
ship to the war effort. The reply came from the First Lord of the
Admiralty, one Winston Churchill: "Proceed". And proceed they
did. When the Endurance was trapped and finally crushed to
splinters by pack ice in late 1915, they drifted on an ice floe for five
months, before getting to open sea and launching three tiny boats as far
as the inhospitable, storm-lashed Elephant Island. They drank seal oil
and ate baby albatross (delicious, apparently.) From there Shackleton himself and seven others- -the author among them--went on, in a 22-foot
open boat, for an unbelievable 800 miles, through the Antarctic seas in
winter, to South Georgia and rescue. It is an extraordinary story of
courage and even good-humour among men who must have felt certain,
secretly, that they were going to die. Worsley's account, first
published in 1940, captures that bulldog spirit exactly: uncomplaining,
tough, competent, modest and deeply loyal. It's gripping, and strangely
moving.
|
 Shackleton's Forgotten Men
Lennard
Bickel
Buy USA
Buy UK
In Shackleton's Forgotten Men Lennard Bickel honours the memory of a
group of men who carried out some of the most heroic and devoted
journeys ever made in Antarctica. This is the stirring account of the
little-known, tragic expedition launched by Ernest Shackleton in 1915 to
provide support for his own Antarctic expedition that would follow.
These journeys were made to set up depots across the Great Ice Shelf to
supply the coming Shackleton expedition, a crossing of the Antarctic
continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea.
But the group lost their
ship and supplies when a fierce polar gale ripped the ship from its
moorings, and had to haul sledges almost 2000 miles across the hostile
interior of Antarctica. Despite enduring unimaginable deprivation,
from bad weather to disease and madness, this heroic band accomplished
their mission, laying the way for Shackleton and his men. But Shackleton
and his men never came and the drama of their own disastrous journey has
until now overshadowed the extraordinary story of those brave men who
came before them. Lennard Bickel tells the story of these forgotten
heroes in a gripping account, drawing largely from interviews with one
team member, Dick Richards, and from the diary of another.
|
 The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
Caroline Alexander
Buy USA
Buy UK
Melding superb research and the extraordinary expedition
photography of Frank Hurley, The Endurance by Caroline Alexander is a
stunning work of history, adventure, and art which chronicles "one of the
greatest epics of survival in the annals of exploration." Most
skilfully Alexander constructs the expedition's character through its
personalities--the cast of veteran explorers, scientists, and crew--with aid
from many previously unavailable journals and documents. We learn, for
instance, that carpenter and shipwright Henry McNish, or "Chippy," was
"neither sweet-tempered nor tolerant," and that Mrs. Chippy, his cat, was
"full of character." Such firsthand descriptions, paired with 170 of Frank
Hurley's intimate photographs, which are comprehensively assembled here for
the first time, penetrate the hulls of the Endurance and these tough men. |
 Shackleton's
Boat Journey - the voyage of the James Caird
Buy
UK
A
fully illustrated biography of the boat that took Shackleton and his small
rescue party from Elephant Island to South Georgia on a mission to get
help for the rest of the team left stranded by the sinking of their ship
the Endurance in the Antarctic pack ice.
Written by the founder of the James Caird Society and
available via their website.
Note, the James Caird is preserved intact and displayed
in Dulwich college London. The James Caird Society arrange dinners close
to the boat on a regular basis.
|
|
 South:
Ernest Shackleton
Shackleton's own words
Buy USA
Buy UK
The original account
of Shackleton's journey as documented by himself, illustrated with classic
black
and white photographs that I've seen on a regular basis since being
interested in Antarctica some 20 years ago and still consider to be among
the best pictures of Antarctica ever taken.
|
 Shackleton's
Way, Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer
Margot Morrell,
Stephanie Capparell
Buy USA
Buy UK
A handbook for leaders. The
authors, a Wall Street Journal reporter and a financial expert, use
the Shackleton story to illustrate principles of leadership, including the
importance of hiring an outstanding crew, creating camaraderie and leading
effectively in a crisis. With a sampling of Frank Hurley photographs, and
interviews with business leaders who have been inspired by "The
Boss." Shackleton mania is continuing apace, this the second (and
best) book for executives on Shackleton's instinctive leadership
abilities. |
 Tom Crean: Unsung Hero
- biography
by Michael Smith
Buy USA
Buy UK
Tom Crean served both Scott and Shackleton and
outlived them both. He was what is often described as "hardbitten"
tough, and determined. He is one of the lesser known and unsung
heroes of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, Michael Smith's
excellent biography sets this partly to rights in a fascinating story of
an adventurous life.
 Tom Crean's Rabbit: A True
Story from Scott's Last Voyage
for ages 4-8
USA
UK |
 The Ice Man: The Antarctic Adventures of Tom Crean
for younger readers
USA
UK |
|
 Shackleton
biography
Roland Huntford
Buy USA
Buy UK
Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Anglo-Irish explorer, never
achieved his goal of reaching the South Pole, though he was knighted in 1909
for having come within 100 miles. With bravery matched only by his
theatricality, Shackleton sought to top that accomplishment by landing on
one side of Antarctica and travelling the width of the icy continent by
sledge. What might have been a great exploratory journey turned into a raw
struggle for survival when his ship became trapped in pack ice, and he was
forced to lead his team on a desperate trek across hundreds of miles of the
world's most dangerous terrain. He made it home, but even his stature as one
of Edwardian England's greatest heroes could not save Shackleton from
financial risk taking; he ended his life mired in debt. Roland Huntford's
biography presents a balanced and lively portrait of a man who was,
depending on which of his contemporaries you asked, a national hero or a
contemptible rogue. --Robert McNamara A must read book if you are
interested in Shackleton and his Antarctic expeditions. |
 Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition
The Remarkable Journal of
Shackleton's Polar-Bound Cat
Buy USA
Buy UK
With an introduction by Lord Mouser-Hunt, this is the journal
of Mrs Chippy, the cat who accompanied the carpenter Harry "Chippy" McNeish
on the Shackleton's "Endurance" expedition in 1914. |
 Shipwreck
at the Bottom of the World, The True Story of the Endurance Expedition,
Jennifer
Armstrong
- for ages 12 and up
Buy USA
Buy UK
Featuring 40 of expedition
photographer Frank Hurley's stunning photographs, this book vividly
retells the story of the Endurance. With many
excerpts from expedition diaries. |
 Frank Wild biography
Leif
Mills
Buy USA
Buy UK
Leif Mills' excellent biography of Frank Wild provides long
overdue insight into the man who was much more than "Shackleton's right-hand
man." Mills draws on many letters and diaries to illustrate the family
background, values and experiences that made Wild who he was: a remarkably
brave, stolid and popular explorer who was a leader in his own right.
Antarctica enthusiasts will find this book a valuable addition to their
collections. |
 Frank
Hurley: A Photographer's Life
Buy USA
Buy UK
The definitive book on the extraordinary
Australian photographer Frank Hurley. Hurley is know for the photographic
record he made with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition of 1914 to
1916 but he had a career that spanned six decades. He covered both World
Wars One and Two and published many books but in all of this time, no one
ever really knew the real Frank Hurley. Adventurer, artist, film maker,
showman, he was an enigma and was definitely controversial. A brilliant
book. |
 Sir James Wordie Polar
Crusader: Exploring The Arctic And Antarctic
Michael Smith biographer
Buy USA
Buy UK
Wordie's career as both explorer and academic geologist
opened with his participation in Shackleton's epic Endurance expedition of
1914-16, where he proved one of the most resilient of those stranded in
appalling conditions on Elephant Island. He continued to lead arduous
expeditions to the Arctic well into his forties, while building his
reputation as an academic and mentor to new generations of explorers and
mountaineers. During and after the Second World War he was instrumental in
safeguarding British strategic interests in the Antarctic territories, and
later rose to be President of the Royal Geographical Society and Master of
St John's College, Cambridge. |
 Antarctic Eyewitness: South With Mawson and Shackleton's
Argonauts
Buy
USA
Buy UK
This book combines Charles Laseron's 1947 "South With Mawson"
and Frank Hurley's 1948 "Shackleton's Argonauts" in one volume. Laseron's
account of the 1912 Mawson expedition is full of human interest, and makes a
useful adjunct to Mawson's own, somewhat drier account in "Home of the
Blizzard." Frank Hurley's "Shackleton's Argonauts" is a gripping description
of the Endurance expedition, also illustrated with some of Hurley's
magnificent photographs. Having served with both Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir
Ernest Shackleton, Hurley compares the two men in a couple of wonderful
paragraphs, concluding "Shackleton grafted science onto exploration; Mawson
added exploration onto science". |
|
