The Heart of the Great Alone
Scott, Shackelton and Antarctic photography
This book lovingly reproduces the best of their [Pointing and Hurley’s] photographs (and prints some that have not previously been seen in book form), and brings the reader tantalizingly close to the heroes of these expeditions and the suffering and sorrow they endured.
Dwight Garner, New York Times
270 x 235 mm, 313 illustrations
ISBN 978 1 905686 43 8
US and Canadian rights sold
The names of Scott and Shackleton are synonymous with the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. This book, published to coincide with the 100th anniversaries of these brave if ill-fated expeditions, is unique in viewing them through the eyes of the expeditions’ official photographers – Herbert Ponting, who travelled with Scott on the Terra Nova in 1910, and Frank Hurley, who was with Shackleton on the Endurance in 1914.
These remarkable early photographic chroniclers endured some of the most hostile conditions on the planet to create images of transcendent beauty and startling emotional force.
The Heart of the Great Alone marries this outstanding photography with a commentary of polar exploration from David Hempleman-Adams, who knows the world of the Antarctic as well as these first explorers did.
This book forms an essential addition to the literature of polar exploration, with an appeal that lies not only in the story of these great adventures, but also in the records of them in these beautiful and awe-inspiring photographs.
David Hempleman-Adams is a British adventurer and explorer. He was the first man to reach the four geographical and Magnetic Poles and to climb the highest mountains in the seven continents. In 1996 he was the first Briton to go solo and unsupported to the South Pole and he has reached the poles a record nine times.
Sophie Gordon is Head of Photographs, Royal Collection Trust and has published widely on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photography.
Emma Stuart is Senior Curator of Books and Manuscripts in the Royal Library.
