2-693-821 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Aurora Australis.', c1908, (1909). Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) made three expeditions to the Antarctic. During the second expedition, 1907-1909, he and three companions established a new record, Farthest South latitude at 88°S, only 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles, or 180 km) from the South Pole, the largest advance to the pole in exploration history. Members of his team also climbed Mount Erebus, the most active volcano in the Antarctic. Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII for these achievements. He died during his third and last 'oceanographic and sub-antarctic' expedition, aged 47. Illustration after an original painting by George Marston (1882-1940) the expedition artist, from The Heart of the Antarctic, Vol. I, by E. H. Shackleton, C.V.O. [William Heinemann, London, 1909]