Northwest Passage First Edition - Roald Amundsen - Bauman Rare Books

Northwest Passage

Roald AMUNDSEN

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Northwest Passage

“THE TRUE CULMINATION OF THE HEROIC QUEST”: FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF AMUNDSEN’S NORTHWEST PASSAGE, 1908, WITH OVER 139 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING THREE COLOR MAPS

AMUNDSEN, Roald. The North West Passage, Being a Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship “Gjöa” 1903-1907. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1908. Two volumes. Octavo, original black gilt-stamped cloth top edges gilt.

First American edition of Amundsen’s two-volume account of his pioneering 1903-7 discovery of the Northwest Passage, with numerous illustrations and three color maps (two folding).

“Roald Amundsen was probably the most accomplished of any polar explorer, if not explorers generally” (Books on Ice 5.4). As a young man, Amundsen was determined to be the first to discover the Northwest Passage—that elusive “chimera that lured men along the path of exploration… the true culmination of the historic quest” (Huntford, 13). In mid-1903 his small crew set out aboard the Gjöa to fulfil Amundsen’s “bold dream that would make him world famous—the conquest of the Northwest Passage.” On surviving three brutal winters, the Gjöa finally “completed the last ‘unsolved link in the North West Passage,” succeeding where all others had failed (Delgado 171-9). This first American edition, preceded the same year by the first English edition and the 1907 first edition, in Norwegian, records his expedition’s considerable scientific achievements and “with its detailed observations on travel routes and methods, descriptions of his many encounters with the Inuit, and tales of several sledging expeditions, was avidly read by English and American explorers” (Books on Ice 5.4). Amundsen followed this landmark achievement with major expeditions to the South Pole, the Northeast Passage, and the North Pole by airship. With over 139 illustrations, many full-page, including frontispiece plates and three color maps (two folding). Volume II with Supplement, Amundsen’s Addendum and Index. As issued without dust jackets. See Arctic Bibliography 400, 402.

Text, plates and maps generally fresh with light scattered foxing; slight edge-wear, mild rubbing to bright gilt cloth. A handsome two-volume work in near-fine condition.

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