Arctic World First Edition - W. H. Davenport Adams - Bauman Rare Books

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Arctic World

W. H. Davenport ADAMS | Allen William YOUNG

Item#: 89804 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Arctic World

Arctic World

“ENGLISHMEN HAVE ALWAYS FELT A SPECIAL INTEREST IN THE REGIONS OF THE ICY NORTH”: THE ARCTIC WORLD, RICHLY ILLUSTRATED FIRST EDITION

(ARCTIC) [ADAMS, W. H. Davenport, editor] (YOUNG, Allen William). The Arctic World: Its Plants, Animals, and Natural Phenomena. With a Historical Sketch of Arctic Discovery down to the British Polar Expedition: 1875-76. London: T. Nelson and Sons, circa 1876. Quarto, original red pictorial cloth over beveled boards, all edges gilt.

Early expanded edition of this richly illustrated survey of plant, animal and human life in the Arctic, with a special emphasis on British expeditions to that region and in search of the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, with map and 143 full-page and in-text wood-engraved illustrations. A lovely copy in fine original pictorial cloth.

With chapters on flora, fauna, native inhabitants, geography and natural phenomena. The final chapter traces British expeditions above the Arctic Circle—including Ross, Parry, and Franklin—and concludes with the very recent expedition of Captain Sir Allen William Young in the Pandora to ascertain the practicability of a Northwest Passage and, incidentally, in passing King William’s Land, to search for the journals of the Erebus and Terror, of Sir John Franklin’s disastrous expedition. “With the object of assisting the government Arctic expedition which set out in May 1875 under the command of (Sir) George Strong Nares, Young took his steam yacht Pandora to Baffin’s Bay and picked up Nares’ dispatches from the Carey Islands. He then tried to make the Northwest passage, but was stopped by heavy ice in Peel Strait. The next year he again took the Pandora north, and in spite of great difficulties landed dispatches for Nares at Cape Isabella and Littleton Island” (DNB). “It is difficult to believe that the nation will rest until the ‘heart of the mystery has ben plucked out,’ the Secret finally mastered, and the British flag hoisted on that remote point which is conventionally known as the North Pole.” First published in 1876, this early edition was expanded from 276 pages to 339, and includes accounts of more recent British expeditions, down to Captain Young’s expedition of 1875-76.

Occasional foxing. Original pictorial cloth clean and fresh, gilt bright. A lovely, fine copy.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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