Description
The first edition of A Journey From Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay by Samuel Hearne, published in London in 1795.
Quarto, xliv, 418pp, [2]. Contemporary three quarter green calf, green cloth boards, title in gilt on the spine, five compartments, raised bands. Cosmetic color repair to green calf on the spine, archival reinforcement to both hinges. Bookplate of Ernest Thompson Seton and his daughter, Dee Seton Barber, on the front pastedown. Bookseller’s label on front pastedown. Publisher’s advertisement and Directions to the Binder bound after maps at rear.
Complete with five engraved folding maps, and four engraved plates. Light toning along margins of maps, all with solid hinges, near fine examples.
(Sabin 31181) (Hill 791)
Samuel Hearne (1745-1792) was an English explorer employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company who, between 1769 and 1772, carried out a landmark overland expedition from Prince of Wales Fort on Hudson Bay to the Arctic coast, the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean overland in North America.
Guided in large part by the Chipewyan leader Matonabbee and traveling with Dene companions, Hearne set out to locate rumored copper deposits and map the Canadian interior for the Company’s trade ambitions. This published account, with detailed observations of northern Indigenous life, geography, and wildlife, and an account of the Bloody Falls massacre, made the expedition famous.
Hearne returned to Hudson Bay in 1772, a key early chronicler of the Canadian subarctic.
