FIRST TRADE EDITION OF BYRD’S LITTLE AMERICA

BYRD, Richard E. Little America: Aerial Exploration in the Antarctic. The Flight to the South Pole. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1930. Octavo, original blue cloth gilt, photographic endpapers. $500.

First trade edition, with 74 maps and illustrations, including frontispiece portrait and two folding maps.

“The expedition discovered a part of Antarctica now known as Marie Byrd Land, the Rockefeller and Ford mountain ranges, and the 10,000-foot La Gorce Mountain. Some 150,000 square miles of territory was photographed. In June 1930 the expedition returned to New York to a hero’s welcome. Byrd undertook an extensive lecture tour and published Little America to pay off the expedition’s debts” (DAB). Preceded by the signed limited edition of 1000 copies, published the same year. Conrad, 253. Fitzgerald Collection 126. See Taurus 114. Publisher’s publicity letter, advertising a letter contest, laid in. Without original dust jacket.

Slight rubbing to spine ends, cloth clean with gilt bright. A fine copy.