In August 1914, renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. They came within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack, and the crew was stranded on the floes. Their ordeal lasted for twenty grueling months, and the group made two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before they were finally rescued.

Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton’s expedition. An extraordinary re-creation of the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew’s heroic daily struggle for survival, The Endurance thrillingly describes one of the last great adventures in the brave age of exploration—perhaps the greatest of them all.