D’ORLEANS, Le Duc (Prince Philippe) (1869-1926). Le Revanche de la Banquise, un ete de derive dans la mer de Kara Juin-Septembre 1907. Paris: Plon-Nourrit et Cie, 1909.
4to. 8 maps, mostly folding, numerous plates from photos. Original pictorial wrappers printed in red and black (discrete repairs to joints and spine, some soiling and sunning to covers).
FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY PRINCE PHILIPPE. A scarce narrative of Prince Philippe’s voyage to the eastern Arctic in the “Belgica” under the command of Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery, who had sailed to the Antarctic in the same ship in 1898-99, which Philippe owned. In 1907, the two headed northeast for the Barents and Kara Seas to conduct studies in oceanography and natural sciences. On July 13, she entered the Matochkin Shar and emerged into the Kara Sea on the 15th. Next day, the ship ran into heavy ice in which she was imprisoned. She drifted slowly towards the south end of Novaya Zemlya, went through the Vaigatch gateway, and was finally released in the Sea of Murmanske on August 20. From here, Gerlache sailed north along Novaya Zemlya’s west shore towards Frans Josef Land and on September 1 reached latitude 78ºN. He and Orleans tried to go farther north, but the ice kept driving them back and on September 4 they gave up and sailed through the Barents Sea to Norway, where they arrived on September 12th.
RARE IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Not in Arctic Bib.