Apr 14, 2015 - Sale 2380

Sale 2380 - Lot 51

Price Realized: $ 1,105
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ARCTIC.) Franklin, John. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea. 4 folding maps, 30 plates (11 of them hand-colored). [iii]-xvi, 784, 6 pages. 4to, early 1/2 calf, moderate wear, rebacked, hinges starting; intermittent foxing, largest map laid down on linen, lacking half-title and errata slip; later owner's signature on front flyleaf. London, 1823

Additional Details

first edition of this first-hand account of Franklin's Canadian Arctic expedition from 1819 to 1822, including supplementary reports by other survivors. Franklin's party was reduced to eating the leather in their shoes and lost 11 of 20 men, mostly to starvation, but they also charted vast expanses which had been previously unknown to Europeans. Franklin and his entire 129-man crew died on a later Arctic expedition, 1845-1848. "One of the most terrible journeys on record . . . among the classics of travel literature"--Lande 1181. Hill 635; TPL 1248.