Most of the books in Ernest Shackleton's collection were lost with his ship but the explorer encouraged his men to take some of them with them to keep them entertained and mentally active after they abandoned ship. A photo was taken of the rescued books on a shelf in his cabin but the titles were not readable until now. Now that the image has been digitized, historians have been able to gather a much more detailed view of Shackleton’s personal library, which he freely lent to members of the Endurance.
He had a number of reference books but he brought popular fiction and classic novels and poems, too. Particularly poignant are the library’s collection of books about exploration such as Journal of HMS Enterprise, which details a failed rescue mission in search of the lost Franklin expedition in the Arctic in the 1840s.
Read more: Smithsonian
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