This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/18/2025
CHARCOT, Dr. Jean (1825-1893). The Voyage of the “Why Not?" in the Antarctic. The Journal of the Second French South Polar Expedition, 1908-1910. London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1911]. 4to. Illustrated with 42 plates including fold-out photographic frontispiece with tissue guard, 48 black-and-white photographs – many full-page, 3 sketches and one full-page map. 315 pp. Publisher's full blue cloth, front board stamped in gilt, spine stamped in gilt and white (spine a bit toned, some rubbing to binding, corners a bit bumped, some offsetting to endleaves, a few gutters overopened or starting, a few text leaves with short marginal tears, handsome previous owner's gift inscription on the ffep.) Near fine. FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION. The first-person narrative and results of the Second French Antarctic Expedition under the command of Jean Charcot. Impressively, a total of 1250 miles of coastline and newly discovered territory were surveyed. Maps created from Charcot's expedition were so precise that they were still being used twenty-five years later by sealers and whalers. Enough scientific data was collected to fill 28 volumes, illustrated with some of the 3000 photographs taken during the expedition. The Polar historian, Edwin Swift Balch, wrote that Charcot's explorations "occupy a place in the front rank of the most important Antarctic expeditions. No one has surpassed him and few have equaled him as a leader and as a scientific observer". Robert Falcon Scott referred to Charcot as "the gentleman of the Pole". Charcot continued exploring and recording data in the polar waters until his death in 1936 in a storm-induced shipwreck on the coast of Iceland. Spence 262. Renard 296. Rosove 67.A.1.