This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/20/2022
CHRISTENSEN, Lars (1884–1965). My Last Expedition to the Antarctic 1936–1937. Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum, 1938.
Square 8vo. Portrait frontispiece and numerous illustrations from photographs. Original brown cloth, printed label on upper cover, map endpapers (some spotting to label).
FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY CHRISTENSEN TO CLARENCE BIRDSEYE (1886–1956) on the frontispiece. Birdseye was an American inventor and naturalist who is considered the founder of the modern frozen food industry. This published lecture was first delivered before the Norwegian Geographical Society on 22 September 1937. Christensen, a philanthropist with a keen interest in polar exploration, financed several Antarctic expeditions and even participated in several of these voyages. Christensen was among the first to use aerial surveying with seaplanes to map the coast of East Antarctica, which he completed from the Weddell Sea to the Shackleton Ice Shelf, concentrating on Bouvetøya and the region from Enderby Land to Coats Land. He was also a wealthy ship owner and wholesale merchant, who would build the ship the Endurance, intending to use it for Arctic cruises for tourists to hunt polar bears. When these plans fell through, he would sell the ship to Ernest Shackleton for his Imperial Trans–Antarctic Expedition of 1914.