BORCHGREVINK, Carsten Egebert (1864-1934). First on the Antarctic Continent. Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition 1898-1900. London: George Newnes, 1901.
8vo. With photogravure portrait, 3 color-printed folding maps, 18 plates. Original blue pictorial gilt cloth, gilt top edge, black coated endpapers (spine gently darkened, slight cockling to front joint, else fine). Provenance: Rev. I.A. Pybus (rubberstamps on endpapers and title-page).
FIRST EDITION of Borchgrevink’s account of the voyage of the Southern Cross, in which his team reached the furthest point south ever attained to that time. With the Royal Geographical Society preparing for the upcoming Scott expedition, Borchgrevink turned to publisher George Newnes for backing, further angering the R. G. S. and its president, Sir Clements Markham. Borchgrevink’s party spent almost a year within the Antarctic Circle and he claimed to have achieved “a number of ‘firsts’: the first time dogs were used on the Antarctic continent, a furthest south record, the first sledge journey on the Ross Ice Shelf” (Taurus). An unusually bright copy. Conrad, p 91; Rosove 45.A1a; Spence 152; Taurus 24.