Quarto. 380pp, [2]. With numerous black and white illustrations from photographs in the text, and two maps (one folding). Original publisher's pictorial green cloth, A.E.G. Worn, lower hinge exposed, text-block separating from binding - held by front pastedown only, lightly rubbed and sunned. From the library of Eric Kenneth Prentice 'Kenn' Back (b. 1942), meteorologist with the British Antarctic Survey from 1963 to 2002, and a descendant of Arctic explorer George Back, with his bookplate to FEP.

Shackleton's Endurance expedition of 1914-17 took on mythical qualities when, in the wake of the loss of their ship, efforts switched from the proposed trans-antarctic crossing to one of survival and ensuring the rescue of his entire Weddell Sea party. To achieve this Shackleton, his captain Worsley and four other companions, successfully navigated an 800-mile crossing of the treacherous South Atlantic in an adapted lifeboat, the James Caird, to reach the whaling station at South Georgia.