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The heavens were violet and the stars were now fading behind the increasing twilight. A zone of yellow extended from west around south to east, while the other half of the circle was a vivid purple. The ice was dark blue. An hour later the highest bergs began to glitter as if tipped with gold... Finally, as the sun rose from her snowy bed, the whole frigid seas was coloured as if flooded with liquid gold (sic).

These tales are amazing in their description and intensity, but not all of them have happy endings...

Danger and Death

This book includes letters, journal entries, and extracts form men who made the journey to Antarctica. They are representative of the many who visited the place, and their tales stand for the experiences of those other explorers who never made it back alive.

Upon being the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911, Roald Engebreth Gravning Amundsen wrote that he "proceeded to the greatest and most solemn act of the whole journey — the planting of our flag." However, as he said, "It was not for one man to this; it was for all who had staked their lives in the struggle, and held together thick and thin."

Amundsen succeeded where so many others had failed. He and all of the others who visited the place have managed to make their mark on the literature of adventure. The biggest reminders of the many who ventured to Antarctica may still be left there. As Eights wrote in 1830, "Although many of the scenes about these islands are highly exciting, the effect produced on the mind, by their general aspect, is cold and cheerless to an unusual degree, for on their lonely shores the voice of man is seldom heard; the only indication of his ever having trod the soil, is the solitary grave of some poor seaman near the beach... "