The government-funded British Nat-ional Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott in 1901, usually known as Discovery, was the first official British mission to the ice since that of James Clark Ross in 1839, and among the first to explore Antarctica systematically. Despite what Ed Armston-Sheret calls its ‘wealth of new geographical and scientific discoveries’, in the public imagination subsequent missions have eclipsed BNAE. But, as the author convincingly argues, ‘It is impossible to properly understand Scott’s and Shackleton’s later decisions – or our broader relationship to Antarctica – without the Discovery expedition.’

Armston-Sheret, a Fellow at the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, tells the story chronologically, but has come up with an unusually innovative structure. The Grip of the Ice unfolds via a prologue, twelve chapters and an epilogue that each focus on one member of the team. Armston-Sheret selects from officers and lower-deck men, merchant seamen and Royal Navy sailors, scientists and three non-explorers involved in organisational practicalities at home.

Custom-built with both barque-rigged masts and steam engines, Discovery left London on 31 July 1901 with forty-seven men; one subsequently perished in a fall from the crow’s nest. On 8 January 1902, a lookout spied the Antarctic mainland. The men built a hut on McMurdo Sound but lived on board