Journal Of A Voyage For The Discovery Of A North-West Passage From The Atlantic To The Pacific

Description

The first edition of Journal Of A Voyage For The Discovery Of A North-West Passage From The Atlantic To The Pacific, [with] Journal of a Second Voyage, published in 1821 and 1824 by William Edward Parry.

Quarto, [two volumes], [8], [errata], xxix, [3], 310pp, [2], clxxix, [1]; [Second Voyage], [10], xxx, [2], 571pp, [errata], [charts]. Uniformly bound in contemporary brown calf, title stamped in gilt over green morocco label, decorative gilt embellishments, marbled boards. New endpapers. Bookseller’s label on rear pastedown. Bookplate of William Tooke, a Fellow of the Royal Society, on the front pastedown of Volume II.

Both volumes complete, with frontispiece map, three folding plates, and 16 full-page engraved plates in Volume I; Frontispiece engraving, 30 copper engravings (four folding), and eight folding charts in Volume II. Both volumes include the errata leaf. Light foxing along margins of a few plates, text block generally clean. A near fine example.

(Arctic Bibliography 13145 / 13142) (Sabin 58860 / 58864) (Hill 1311)

Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855) was a British naval officer and one of the foremost Arctic explorers of the nineteenth century, leading a series of Admiralty-sponsored attempts to chart and transit the Northwest Passage; between 1819 and 1825 he commanded multiple expeditions in HMS Hecla, Griper, and Fury, achieving farthest-west penetration through Lancaster Sound and wintering at Melville Island, while also conducting hydrographic surveys, magnetic and meteorological studies, and early forms of structured Arctic overwintering. His attempts at the North Pole influenced later Arctic expeditions by John Ross, John Franklin, and Roald Amundsen.