His diary entry of August 27, 1915, describes this undertaking: 'During night take flashlight of ship beset by pressure. On duty at all hours of the day or night, sometimes arising at midnight to take photographs, he was keenly sensitive to the variegated and ever-changing play of light, continually elated at this spectacle of sky and ice and shadows.' Hurley's nighttime images of the doomed Endurance are among his best-known photos. As Lionel Greenstreet, the vessel's First Officer, wrote: 'Hurley is a warrior with his camera & would go anywhere or do anything to get a picture.' Alexander elaborates on Hurley's dedication to his art: 'Once the Endurance became trapped, Hurley turned his camera to both the domestic life of the ship, and to the vision of it improbably suspended in the protean world of the ice. He ventured into darkness, fog and uncertain terrain to get his shots, and scaled the extreme heights of the ship's rigging to capture majestic panoramas. Enlisted as Shackleton's photographer in 1914, Hurley advanced his reputation for stopping at nothing to secure a memorable picture. That voyage subsequently brought Hurley to Shackleton’s attention. Led by his adventurousness, at age 25 Hurley signed on as official photographer to Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14 which explored the 2000-mile long Antarctic coastline south of Australia. Hurley reportedly had an early taste for danger, gaining a reputation for putting himself at risk in order to achieve spectacular images such as situating himself on railroad tracks to capture oncoming trains on film. He eventually became a self-taught photographer, setting himself up in the picture-postcard business.

Hurley, an Australian, had run away from home at age 13 and worked at a steel mill and dockyards before returning to study at the local technical school and attend science lectures at the University of Sydney. Distinguishing this book are 140 photographs taken by Frank Hurley, the expedition's photo documentarian. They reveal as much about the writers as they do about their colleagues (names are named) and since the majority of the crew kept journals of some kind, their collective writings describe the group dynamic comprehensively.

Many of the crew's diary entries are juicy, opinionated, and humorous.

The text is a product of deep research, contact with families of the expedition members, and access to documents and diaries which, according to the author, were safeguarded for many years. Following Lansing by 39 years and the expedition itself by 84, Alexander elaborates further on the crew's personalities, interactions, and ordeals.

Shackleton aficionados seeking a companion piece to Alfred Lansing's classic Endurance will find great satisfaction in Caroline Alexander's book, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition.

The Endurance by Caroline Alexander