Alone: The Greatest Antarctic Adventure of Our Time

When Admiral Richard E. Byrd set out on his second Antarctic expedition in 1934, he was already an international hero for having piloted the first flights over the North and South Poles. His plan for this latest adventure was to spend six months alone near the bottom of the world, gathering weather data and indulging his desire “to taste peace and quiet long enough to know how good they really are.” But early on things went terribly wrong. Isolated in the pervasive polar night with no hope of release until spring, Byrd began suffering inexplicable symptoms of mental and physical illness. By the time he discovered that carbon monoxide from a defective stovepipe was poisoning him, Byrd was already engaged in a monumental struggle to save his life and preserve his sanity. When Alone was first published in 1938, it became an enormous bestseller. This edition keeps alive Byrd’s unforgettable narrative for new generations of readers. A gripping account of the human will to survive, Alone has remained an international best-seller since its original publication in 1938. When Admiral Richard E. Byrd set out on his second Antarctic expedition in 1933, he was already an international hero for having made the first flights over the North and South Poles. But this undertaking was to be different: six months alone near the bottom of the world, gathering weather data and indulging his desire "to taste peace and quiet long enough to know how good they really are." Little did he know that he would experience less tranquility than he had anticipated. Isolated in the pervasive polar night with no hope of release until spring, Byrd began suffering inexplicable symptoms of mental and physical illness. By the time he discovered that carbon monoxide from a defective stovepipe was poisoning him, Byrd was already engaged in a monumental struggle to save his life and preserve his sanity. When Alone was first published in 1938, it became an enormous bestseller. This edition, featuring a new afterword by Kieran Mulvaney, brings Byrd's unforgettable narrative to a new generation of readers. BOLLING ADVANCE WEATHER BASE, WHICH I MANNED ALONE during the Antarctic winter night of 1934, was planted in the dark immensity of the Ross Ice Barrier, on a line between Little America and the South Pole.