This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/12/2023
SHIMA, Yoshitake. Nankyoku Tanken to Kotaijingu no Hosai [in English:] South Pole Expedition and the Enshrinement of Kotaijingu. Tokyo: Shiso Zendo Tosho Kankokai, September 1930.
8vo (191 x 127 mm). Color frontispiece, 6 full-page photographic plates, 19 woodcut illustrations in the text, fold-out map with color. Original white cloth stamped in blues and red, gilt-lettered spine (spine gently sunned, light wear to lower fore-edge of upper cover); silk folding chemise with printed labels.
FIRST EDITION OF ARGUABLY THE RAREST FIRST-PERSON NARRATIVES RELATED TO THE JAPANESE ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. Yoshitake Shima served as purser aboard the Kainan Maru and clerk on the Japanese Antarctic Expedition during both seasons. Shima was a Shinto priest; Kotaijingu, mentioned in the main title, is the place where the Japanese Shinto God Amaterasu Omikami is enshrined. His narrative is one of the more elusive titles related to the expedition. Ross 1.7.1 (“Very Rare”).