This is an insightful and well-researched biography. Using sources previously kept within the Oates family, including a collection of over three hundred of Captain Oates' letters and portions of his Antarctic diary, Sue Limb and P. Cordingly recreate many details of the explorer's life and experiences which had previously been unknown. The result is an account focusing on Oates' LIFE, rather than his famous DEATH after reaching the South Pole with Scott in 1912. Oates is shown to be not a sublime martyr, but instead an intelligent, remarkable man grounded in reality, whose life ended too soon as a result of the blunders of others.