# What is Endurance by Alfred Lansing about? Canonical: https://zestasy.com/wiki/endurance-shackleton/ Section: Zestasy Wiki > Books & ideas · Updated: 2026-10-13 · Publisher: Zestasy *Zestasy Wiki: our reference answers. Checked for facts and sources; less curated than the magazine.* Endurance (1959) is Alfred Lansing's account of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to cross Antarctica, which went wrong almost at once: the ship was trapped and crushed by sea ice, and the 28 men spent nearly two years drifting on floes, sailing open boats and crossing mountains to reach help. Every one of them survived. Lansing built the book from the crew's diaries and interviews, and it reads like a thriller you already know the ending of, which somehow makes it more gripping. Some stories are so improbable that only non-fiction can get away with them. Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is one, and Alfred Lansing's Endurance, first published in 1959, is the book that turned it into a modern classic of adventure writing. ## The story, without spoilers you don't already know In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. His ship, Endurance, carrying 28 men, never landed them. It became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea and was eventually crushed. What followed is the real subject of the book: - **The ice.** For just over a year the men camped on drifting sea ice, hauling boats and supplies, waiting for the floes to carry them somewhere useful. - **The boats.** When the ice finally broke up beneath them, they took to three small salvaged boats and made it to Elephant Island, a bleak scrap of land at the edge of the Southern Ocean. - **The voyage.** Shackleton and five others then sailed one of those boats, the James Caird, about 650 nautical miles across the Drake Passage to South Georgia, navigating by dead reckoning, and arrived with the boat barely afloat. - **The crossing.** Shackleton and two companions then made the first successful crossing of South Georgia on foot, over its mountains, to find help. - **The rescue.** About three months later, Shackleton returned for the men left on Elephant Island. Nobody had been lost. The bare outline is famous. The book's achievement is making you feel every day of it. ## How Lansing wrote it Lansing did serious legwork. He had access to almost every diary kept during the expedition, and most of the surviving crew gave him long interviews. The ship's surgeon, Alexander Macklin, was his most important contributor, handing over diaries and a detailed account of the journey to Elephant Island. The result is close-up and specific: the cold, the food, the boredom, the arguments, the small jokes that keep people going. Lansing writes plainly and lets the facts do the work, and the pace never slackens. ## Why it gets passed around Endurance is the rare adventure book that people who never read adventure books end up recommending. Partly because it is simply a great story. Partly because it is about something everyone recognises from ordinary working life, just at extreme scale: what keeps a group together when the plan has failed completely and the only goal left is getting everyone home. It is easy to see why people who run teams, coach sport or manage anything difficult hand it to each other. It is not a manual and draws no neat lessons. You draw your own, and they tend to be about patience, morale and keeping your head. ## How to read it Have a map handy. The geography of the Weddell Sea, Elephant Island and South Georgia makes the scale of each stage land harder. And read it somewhere warm, with a blanket you will be newly grateful for. If you finish it wanting more mountains and fewer floes, [Touching the Void](https://zestasy.com/wiki/touching-the-void/) is a different kind of survival story with the same grip. ## FAQ ### Is Endurance a novel? No. It is narrative non-fiction, built from diaries and interviews with the men who were there. It reads like a novel, which is part of its appeal. ### Do you need to know anything about polar exploration? Nothing at all. Lansing explains what you need as you go, and the human story carries the book. ### Is it suitable for teenagers? Yes, for confident readers. It is tense and occasionally grim, but not graphic, and many younger readers love adventure non-fiction told this well. ### How long is it? A comfortable paperback length, readable over a week of evenings. Most people find they read it faster than planned. ## Sources - [Wikipedia: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance:_Shackleton%27s_Incredible_Voyage) ## Related - [What happens in Touching the Void?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/touching-the-void/) - [What is Into Thin Air about, and is it worth reading?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/into-thin-air/) - [What is the difference between confidence and courage?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/confidence-vs-courage/) - [How do you get more comfortable with failing?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/getting-comfortable-with-failing/) - [What are the best books about walking?](https://zestasy.com/books/best-books-about-walking/) - [All Books & ideas answers in the Wiki](https://zestasy.com/wiki/#books)