Feb 04, 2016 - Sale 2404

Sale 2404 - Lot 46

Price Realized: $ 438
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
(ARCTIC.) Belcher, Edward. The Last of the Arctic Voyages, being a Narrative of the . . . H.M.S. Assistance . . . in Search of Sir John Franklin. 3 maps, 36 plates (10 of them hand-colored), text illustrations. xx, 383; vii, 419 pages plus 23, [1] pages of November 1855 ad leaves at end of first volume. 2 volumes. 8vo, publisher's gilt pictorial cloth, minor wear, rebacked with parts of original backstrips laid down; minor foxing, short separations at folds to the largest map; inked stamps on title pages, Edinger bookplates. London, 1855

Additional Details

first edition. Belcher's five-ship 1852-54 expedition in search of Franklin would be the last official British attempt. On the HMS Assistance, Belcher successfully navigated through the Wellington Channel, but beset by ice was unable to return to Lancaster Sound and was forced to abandon the ship. This account of the expedition also includes several essays on the natural history of the region by Richardson, Owen, Bell, Salter and Reeve. Abbey, Travel 645; Arctic Bibliography 1241; Books on Ice 5.8a; Hill 106; Sabin 4389; TPL 3409.