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Shackleton’s Aurora Australis: The first book printed in Antarctica

When Ernest Shackleton led his team to Antarctica in 1907, he had already travelled to this most inhospitable of continents as third officer on Scott’s Discovery expedition. One of the problems the Discovery trip revealed to Shackleton was what he called polar ennui, and thus he prepared some plans and schemes to keep his own crew productive and motivated during their long, cold northern winters.

Perhaps the 1907 Nimrod expedition’s most surprising undertaking was the writing, illustration, editing, setting, printing and binding of a book, the Aurora Australis. This required the transportation of paper, ink and a printing press across Antarctica.

Though the copies were not numbered, it’s believed that around 100 copies of Aurora Australis were produced, of which more than 30 remain unaccounted for.

This week, the Bodleian Libraries displayed our copy of Aurora Australis during the Oxford Teacher’s Seminar, which gave an opportunity to take the picture featured in this post.

The bindings of the book were made by Bernard Day from the exhibition’s packing cases. The Bodleian’s copy still shows “…d kidneys,” revealing the case’s original purpose.

There are literally millions of books in the Bodleian collections, and many thousands of genuine treasures. Even amongst this wealth of riches, Aurora Australis remains an inspiring and fascinating achievement.

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a true visionary

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Amuseable Boiled Egg

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sprouting thoughts.

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Beauty with roses (detail) 1877 T. Mazzoni,

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Motailroto by Manden

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eats a grape and a slice of cheese simultaneously: ratatouille

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Beauty with roses (detail) 1877 T. Mazzoni,

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