Caroline Alexander was born in Florida, of British parents, and has lived in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. She studied Philosophy and Theology at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and has a doctorate in Classics from Columbia University. She is the author of the bestselling The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition which has been translated into thirteen languages. She writes frequently for The New Yorker and The National Geographic, and she is the author of four other books, including Mr Chippy’s Last Expedition, the journal of the Endurance’s ship’s cat.

‘With this and her previous book, The Endurance, she has made the wondrous genre of open-boat-voyage narratives still more wondrous…This sounds like Conrad writing. A sea mist hangs over this age-old tale. Alexander dispels it, to the reader’s fascination. But when the facts are told and the fates of the cast duly chronicled, the sea mist settles in again, as impenetrable and yet more interesting than it has ever been.’ New York Times Book Review

Caroline Alexander was born in Florida, of British parents, and has lived in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. She studied Philosophy and Theology at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and has a doctorate in Classics from Columbia University. She is the author of the bestselling The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition which has been translated into thirteen languages. She writes frequently for The New Yorker and The National Geographic, and she is the author of four other books, including Mr Chippy’s Last Expedition, the journal of the Endurance’s ship’s cat.

‘With this and her previous book, The Endurance, she has made the wondrous genre of open-boat-voyage narratives still more wondrous…This sounds like Conrad writing. A sea mist hangs over this age-old tale. Alexander dispels it, to the reader’s fascination. But when the facts are told and the fates of the cast duly chronicled, the sea mist settles in again, as impenetrable and yet more interesting than it has ever been.’ New York Times Book Review