Description
The first edition, first printing of Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus by Samuel Eliot Morison, winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize.
Octavo, [two volumes], xlv, [1], 448pp; vi, [2], 445pp, [4]. Red cloth, title stamped in gilt over blue panels on spine and front cover. Stated “First Edition” on copyright page, with “Published February 1942.” Maps by Erwin Raisz, drawings by Bertram Greene, with frontispiece portrait, illustrations, plates, and folding maps. Includes the publisher’s scarce dust jackets, both fine.
The true first edition of the work, issued in this two volume set for $10.00 at the time of publication.
This work won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and remains Morison’s best-known work of maritime history. Morison’s biography of Christopher Columbus was based in part on his 1939-1940 Harvard Columbus Expedition, during which he retraced portions of Columbus’s voyages by sea.
