MELVILLE, George W. (1841-1912). In the Lena Delta: A Narrative of the Search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and his Companions followed by an Account of the Greely Relief Expedition and a Proposed Method of Reaching the North Pole. Edited by Philips Melville. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Company, n.d. [1885].
8vo. Numerous plates. Original pictorial brown cloth stamped in black (spine gently darkened, ends discretely touched up).
Early edition, INSCRIBED BY MELVILLE: “To Daniel Wylie, with compliments of the author, Geo. Melville, Rear Admiral NSQ,”. Below, Melville quotes a sailor’s poem reminiscent of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII: “Blow, blow, ye mighty winds. Ye are not so unkind as mans inhumanity”. On the frontispiece, Melville makes a small correction on the frontispiece below his ranks, adding “Rear Admiral NSQ”, a distinction that was given four years after this publication. Melville served as the Chief Engineer on the Jeanette and one of the few survivors of the crew that sailed into the Bering Sea and through the Bering Strait but was caught in the ice near Herald Island. Melville’s whaleboat party which landed on Lena Delta was the first to be rescued, but he remained in the region to help search for survivors. Twenty-five of the thirty-three men who abandoned ship reached the Lena Delta, but there De Long and eleven others perished due to the extreme condition. Arctic Bib. 11239.