Aurora Australis (book)
Aurora Australis is a book comprising stories and poems written by the members of the Nimrod Expedition to Antarctica led by Ernest Shackleton from 1908 until 1909. It was also illustrated, printed, and bound on location at their polar base, the first book to have been so produced in the Antarctic. Apart from Shackleton, other contributors to the book included geologist T. W. Edgeworth David, artist George Marston, biologist James Murray, and geologist Douglas Mawson.
Bibliographic details
Aurora Australis was written during the British Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton from 1908 until 1909. Produced entirely by members of the expedition, the book was edited by Shackleton, illustrated with lithographs and etchings by George Marston, printed by Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild using a J. Causton & Sons printing press, and bound by Bernard Day. The production of Aurora Australis was one of the cultural activities Shackleton encouraged while the expedition team over-wintered at Cape Royds on Ross Island in the McMurdo Sound, to ensure that "the spectre known as 'polar ennui' never made its appearance". According to Shackleton, it was the "first book ever written, printed, illustrated and bound in the Antarctic".In the additional preface, Shackleton writes, "Since writing the preface for this book I have again looked over its pages, and though I can see but little not up to usual standard in bookmaking, the printers are not satisfied that it is everything that it ought to be. But the reader will understand better the difficulty of such a book quite up to the mark when he is told that, owing to the low temperature in the hut, the only way to keep the printing ink in a fit state to use was to have a candle burning under the inking plate; and so, if some pages are printed more lightly than others it is due to the difficulty of regulating the heat, and consequently the thinning or thickening of the ink."
Because the copies of Aurora Australis were unnumbered, it is unclear exactly how many were produced; it is believed that one hundred copies were created, of which less than seventy have been accounted for. Copies of the book are often identified by the original stencils on the inside of the covers, which were made of boards from wooden supply boxes. Shackleton may have originally intended to sell copies of the book on his return from the Antarctic, but instead they were all distributed among the members of the expedition and given to other "friends and benefactors of the expedition".