Description
The “Admiralty Edition” of Narrative of the Second Voyage in Search of the North-West Passage and The Appendix, by Sir John Ross, published in London in 1835.
Quarto, xxxiii, [1], 740; [Appendix], xii, [1], 120pp, cxliv, cii, [errata]. Contemporary quarter brown calf, decorative gilt bands, marbled boards. Bookplate of Ernest Thompson Seton on the front pastedown of both volumes. Booksellers’ small label on rear pastedown of both volumes. Both works are complete, with 30 plates and charts (9 hand-colored) and a large hand-colored map of the Boothia Peninsula; 20 plates (nine hand-colored) in Appendix. Frontispiece portrait of Sir John Ross in the Appendix. Clean text throughout, solid text block. Scattered foxing and toning to plates, color plates all fine. Archival repair to closed tear along margin of fold-out map.
(Arctic Bibliography 14866) (Sabin 73381) (Sabin 73384) (Hill 1490)
The appendix was printed in fewer numbers than the full narrative and is a scarce text in complete form. Contains additional accounts of the native populations of the arctic region and samples of their language.
John Ross (1777-1856) a British naval officer and explorer, undertook a second Arctic voyage in 1829-33 aboard the steam-assisted paddle vessel Victory, pursuing the Northwest Passage after his disputed 1818 findings. Entering Prince Regent Inlet, Ross wintered at Felix Harbour on the Boothia Peninsula, where his nephew James Clark Ross made the major geographical discovery of the North Magnetic Pole in 1831. Ice pressure trapped Victory for multiple seasons and forced a prolonged retreat by boat and sled to Lancaster Sound, where the party was eventually rescued by a whaling ship in 1833; despite the loss of the vessel, the expedition produced valuable magnetic and cartographic data and rehabilitated Ross’s standing within the British scientific and naval community.
