From hauntingly pristine tundras to immeasurably icy wastelands, the Poles were regarded as the world’s most mysterious and remote regions. By the turn of the twentieth century, advances in technology sparked the imaginations of scientists and adventurers, alike, and a newfound desire to study and explore the untamed realms of Earth’s most northern and southern territories was sought after by many courageous individuals. This era is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The prodigious autobiographical accounts of Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Douglas Mawson and Fridtjof Nansen depict the treacherous scientific expeditions that lead these men and their respective crews to the edge of sanity, as they endured the Poles' merciless conditions.