This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/18/2025
RASSMUSSEN, Knud (1879-1933). Pair of First Editions, including: Eskimo Folk-Tales. Edited and Rendered Into English by W. Worster. London and Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1921. 4to. 156pp., 2pp. incl. sources of various legends, printer, 2pp. publisher's advertisements. Half-title, frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations by native Eskimo artists. Publisher's dark-green cloth with de-bossed titles on front cover, bright gilt titles on spine, in the rare original dust jacket (cloth spine rubbed, some offsetting to endleaves; jacket tattered, torn with large chips to spine and front panel). Very good. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF A VERY SCARCE PUBLICATION IN THE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET. Arctic Bibliography 14187. A fascinating set of 54 Eskimo folk tales, fables and legends collected by Knud Rasmussen and with illustrations by Eskimo artists and illustrators. The various tellings were collected from Smith Sound, northwest, southwest and southeast Greenland including tales from Godthaab and Upernavik. And: People of the Polar North, A Record. London: Kagan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1908. 4to. Coloured frontispiece and 11 other colour plates with tissue guards, numerous other full page illustrations in black and white plus drawings in text; fold-out colour map of Greenland at back of book. [xix], 358 pp. Publisher's full blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt (spine sunned, binding rubbed, boards a bit curved, skewed, endleaves foxed, some occasional foxing in text). Good. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. Arctic Bibliography 14228 The book was written from material compiled by Rasmussen during the Danish Expedition to Greenland in 1902-1904, which visited three different Eskimo-inhabited areas of Greenland. A substantial volume documenting the Eskimos of Greenland, about which little was known at the time. The book is rich in detail, outlining the traditional customs of the nomad Eskimos and relating fables. First published in Danish.