YOUNG, Allen (1827-1915). Cruise of the ‘Pandora.’ Extracts from the Private Journal kept by… London: Wm. Clowes & Sons, 1876.
8vo. 12 mounted albumin photographs by W.J.A Grant, large fold-out lithographed map. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt on spine and upper cover, both covers ruled in black (recased, spine darkened). (Very occasional light spotting). Provenance: Contemporary ownership signature on the title-page dated 1876; Frederick E. Ellis (bookplate).
RARE FIRST EDITION of Young’s account of the Pandora’s inaugural voyage in 1875 via Melville Bay and Carey Islands to Lancaster Sounds, Barrow Strait (as far as Beechey Island), and Peel Sound: with notes on the ice conditions and on a visit to the cryolite mine at Ivigtut, southwest Greenland.
Captain Allen Young had served previously under McClintock on the Fox. He financed the two “Pandora” voyages from his own resources. For the entire expedition, Young’s chief aim was to uncover further details of Franklin’s fate at King William’s Island but was foiled by ice in the Franklin Channel. Young planned another expedition in 1878 but was persuaded to sell the vessel to a sponsor and it was quickly renamed USS Jeannette - the fateful ship that would meet her demise while exploring the Arctic in 1879, losing 20 of its 33 crew members. W.J.A. Grant sailed as a photographer with Young on the Pandora in 1876, making another seven photographic trips to the Arctic thereafter. Grant’s photographic legacy is considerable, and his photographs reproduced in this work are the FIRST PUBLISHED PHOTOS OF THE ARCTIC. Arctic Bibliography 19758 (incorrectly calls for 10 plates).