Sara Wheeler

The Icemen Cometh

The Crossing of Antarctica: Original Photographs from the Epic Journey that Fulfilled Shackleton’s Dream

By

Thames & Hudson 240pp £24.95 order from our bookshop

Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer

By

Oneworld 443pp £20 order from our bookshop

Contemporary writing on the Antarctic reflects our gruesomely unheroic age. Men with frozen beards produce accounts of epic struggles replete with snapped-off digits and self-congratulatory morals about winning through and, more importantly, beating the other guy. If the other guy inconveniently ends up getting there first, he is inevitably revealed to have cheated. I remember a picture editor twenty years ago telling me that when selecting the colour plates for such a book, the author (a contributor to one of the volumes under review here) issued the order, ‘There must be no photographs depicting my companion ahead of me.’

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'To be clever without wanting to glory in it, put dimmer people down or make an act of covering it up (viz Boris Jo… ,
    • 'Her favourite design included a body in the shape of a horse, with a steam engine inside ... The passenger would t… ,
    • Sign up to our email newsletter below! Get free articles, highlights from the archive, and chances to win theatre… ,
    • RT : Founded in 1979, is a trusted independent source for reviews of new books across a variety of genres. A… ,
    • RT : Here we are - "Shelf Indulgence" by Ed Potten, a wonderful read, well worth your time: @Lit_Review,
    • 'Like going to a party hoping to get away as quickly as politeness allowed and at 4am finding myself still engrosse… ,
    • 'Neville never shed his sense of being the junior, and perhaps least-deserving Chamberlain.' From the archive, Mic… ,
    Follow Us