Jun 21, 2016 - Sale 2420

Sale 2420 - Lot 48

Unsold
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(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, contemporary tree calf gilt, rebacked, minor wear, rear board splitting a bit at the fore-edge; minor foxing, lacking half-title, errata slip tipped to page ix, which is misbound after xvi. 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.