NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing” ( The New York
Times ) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship
frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless Antarctic winter “The
energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.”— The Wall Street
Journal In August 1897 the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a
three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was
the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache’s plans to
be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks
the commandant faced two bad options: turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating
Antarctic winter or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De
Gerlache sailed on and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen
Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time the ship’s occupants
were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness plagued by a mysterious illness and
besieged by monotony they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth Julian
Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men
teetered on the brink de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship
had blossomed in captivity: the expedition’s lone American Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius
half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica and the ship’s
first mate soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen even in his youth the storybook picture of a
sailor. Together they would plan a last-ditch nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one
that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s
bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to
the ship’s logbook Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes one so
remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to
Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an
unforgettable journey into the deep.
