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REVIEWS
The New York Times Book Review
"A gripping story embracing both tragedy and triumph"
(Full Review)
The Literary Review (UK)
Combines historical precision with novelistic verve…a harrowing tale of travail and a definitive piece of polar history.”—Fergus Fleming
(full review in print edition only)
The Guardian (UK)
Do we need another story about a gloriously tragic British polar expedition, all stiff upper lips and frozen woollen long-johns? We do, if it's as good as this…gripping immediacy and sensuous detail, so that it reads more like a contemporary exploration yarn—say, Krakauer's Into Thin Air—than a scholarly reconstruction of events long past. The result is unputdownable, and makes you very glad to be reading it in a warm room.
(Full Review)
The Mail on Sunday (UK)
A wonderfully vivid sense of the Sisyphean toil, the inhuman conditions, the endless expanses of ice and time, and the unremitting cold. For breath-freezing drama, The Lost Men can take its place alongside the best of the tales of extraordinary feats of icy exploration.
(full review in print edition only)
History Today
Nail-biting…this previously forgotten part of Shackleton’s expedition at last achieves the recognition in deserves.
(full review in print edition only)
CBSNews.com
It’s terrific.
(Full Review)
Publishers Weekly
While the story of Ernest Shackleton's crew of the Endurance is well known, the fate of Shackleton's Ross Sea support party has largely been forgotten—until now. Charged with laying supply depots for Shackleton's aborted 1914–1916 trans-Antarctic trek, the Ross Sea party became stranded when its ship tore free of her moorings and disappeared in a gale. Cambridge historian Tyler-Lewis's account of the 10-man party's plight relies heavily on the men's journals, which are amazingly detailed, considering the physical (snowblindness, scurvy, frostbite) and mental (depression, paranoia) problems they faced. The men's decision to lay the depots despite the obstacles demonstrates their courage, but Tyler-Lewis's narrative doesn't focus solely on heroics. Instead, the heart of the book lies in Tyler-Lewis's dissection of the men's relationships with one another. As friends are made, alliances formed and resentment festers, humanity is never lost, even amid inhumane conditions. Given the collection of military, civilian, scientific and blue-collar personnel that made up the expedition, it's compelling to see how each man deals with his fate. Add in the party's adventures of sledding in subzero temperatures with the sociological aspects of being stranded for nearly two years in such an inhospitable place, and the result is a gripping work.
Men’s Journal
Legend has it that Sir Ernest Shackleton recruited crewmen for his doomed 1914 trans-Antarctic expedition with the following classified ad: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” Shackleton didn’t succeed in his quest to cross Antarctica, of course, but the supply team he dispatched to the opposite side of the continent, to support his march by leaving a chain of supply depots, did succeed—in spite of the cold, darkness, and danger, and without, until now, much honor or recognition. With The Lost Men, (Viking; $26) historian Kelly Tyler-Lewis finally casts a spotlight on this little-known but heroic polar ordeal. The men of the Ross Sea Party, as they were called, braved blizzards, scurvy, crevasses, and starvation to establish a lifeline for Shackleton, dragging 4,500 pounds of supplies over hundreds of miles of ice—even after the ship was washed out to sea, marooning them for two years, and after their own supplies ran out. Painstakingly researched and electrifyingly written, The Lost Men is a brutal and inspiring tale of adventure and endurance—and the furthest, coldest limits of duty—thankfully chinked from the ice of history.”—Jonathan Miles
National Geographic Adventure
Working from the survivors’ diaries, notebooks, and logs, Tyler-Lewis delves into the harrowing details of their ordeal. She even spent two months in Antarctica to familiarize herself with the terrain. The result is one of the most compelling tales of polar exploration you will find. “In the morning,” she writes, describing a day of hauling the sledges, the men “once again stepped into the traces and heaved with all their might. After an hour of marching in agonizing lockstep, they had crept just a hundred yards." Shackleton saved all his men. The Ross Sea Party lost three. Their saga, long a footnote in the history of Antarctica, has finally, and rightly, been rescued from oblivion. —Anthony Brandt
Booklist (starred review)
Tyler-Lewis writes that in the face of catastrophe they persevered, and contrary to the very instinct of survival, with most of their clothing, food, and equipment gone, the stranded men chose to risk their lives, marching 1,300 miles to build a lifeline of depots for Shackleton’s party. Tyler-Lewis, a historian, located the diaries and logs of 16 survivors. She also found public records and private papers and interviewed the families of the Ross Sea Party members. An exciting book. —George Cohen
Library Journal
Recommended for all libraries with an interest in true adventures or polar exploration.—Robert C. Jones,
Kirkus Reviews
A judicious, sensitive account of an Antarctic trial by ice.
(Full Review)
The Telegraph (UK)
An exhaustively researched and brilliantly crafted addition to the growing library of popular polar scholarship.
(Full Review)
The Times of London
A compelling and compassionately written account...the fate of the Ross Sea Party deserves to be told and retold.
(Full Review)
Times Literary Supplement
For more than eighty years there had been no modern, archivally researched book about the Ross Sea Party, the less well-known half of Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17. Then, like London buses, three came along in quick succession. Lennard Bickel's Shackleton's Forgotten Men (2004 Ed. correction: 1982 ) and Richard McElrea and David Harrowfield's Polar Castaways (2004) have now been joined by Kelly Tyler-Lewis's volume on the expedition...
While Bickel's account is a straightforward tale of action, based mostly on interviews with the physicist Richard Richards, the last surviving expedition member. McElrea and Harrowfield produced a meticulous book that was the fruit of decades of research. Tyler-Lewis steers a judicious middle course: her transcontinental research and range of reference rival--and in some areas surpass--those of McElrea and Harrowfield. She also has a keener sense of drama and timing, expertly conveying the mental and physical disintegration that marked the long homeward trek, while paring down the narrative of episodes, such as the unloading of the ship, that can make McElrea and Harrowfield occasionally heavy going. But there is no skimping here: Kelly Tyler-Lewis's notes are a treasure-trove of information--unequalled in either competitor--that show an omnivorous curiosity about all aspects of her subject. Particularly impressive is the detailed attention to current medical opinion on the men's diseases and deficiencies, as well as to topics as diverse as the height of waves in the Southern Ocean and the design of sledges. But the strongest impression is her warm but clear-eyed admiration for the flawed, idealistic characters who marched against such heavy odds. Her graceful, compact book is a tribute to their poignantly fruitless determination.-- Jonathan Dore
(full review in print edition only)
The Independent (UK)
A first-class book
--Magnus Mills
(Full Review)
Geographical, Book of the Month, November 2006
Comprehensive and impeccable...one of the greatest sagas of human endurance--Robin Hanbury-Tenison
(full review in print edition only)
New Scientist
(Full Review)
Seattle Weekly
With her exhaustively researched and vividly written first book, English historian Kelly Tyler-Lewis has righted the record and told a story that, in its own way, is just as astonishing as Shackleton's.
(Full Review)
Rocky Mountain News
"We can thank historian Kelly Tyler-Lewis for bringing the full account to light… an inspiring story that deserves to be told." (Full Review)
Rocky Mountain News, Recommended Summer Reads
"Read it because: Despite the incomprehensible suffering, deprivation and death it relates, this is a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience."
The Sydney Morning Herald
"Beautifully written and meticulously researched…Kelly Tyler-Lewis has crafted a gripping and harrowing story from the diaries and journals of the survivors." (Full Review)
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
"Tyler-Lewis has written a masterful book. It leaves the reader with admiration for the explorers—and the author."
The Australian
"This fine book will appeal to readers with an interest in Antarctic literature, but Tyler-Lewis has written a story of understated heroism achieve by deeply flawed men that has a more general appeal." (Full Review)
The Hobart Mercury
"Tyler-Lewis presents a masterly account with unobtrusive research ... timely."
The Fan Hitch: Journal of the Inuit Sled Dog International
The Irish News (Northern Ireland)
A brilliant and meticulously researched book.
(full review in print edition only)
Sunday Business Post
Dublin (Ireland), Best Reads of 2006 List
(Full Review)
Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black
I would defy anyone not to find it as riveting as any thriller. True life adventure.
(Full Review)
Aurora, The Journal of the Australian National Antarctic Expeditions
Its importance as a commentary on the strengths and frailties of human nature is perhaps as great, if not greater, than the mere story of yet another tragic polar expedition.
(full review in print edition only)
North and South
Sensitive and gripping...Tyler-Lewis truly puts the reader there, with the men who starve, freeze and die for "The Boss" and for the Empire.
(full review in print edition only)
A New York Times Editors' Choice Book, April 2006
The Scotsman (UK)
A gripping story embracing both tragedy and triumph--Sara Wheeler
(Full Review)
Rocky Mountain News
Best Books of 2006 List
(Full Review)
Fresno Bee
Best Outdoors Books of 2006 List