A Voyage Towards the South Pole,

expanded and enlarged edition

The expanded edition of Weddell's iconic voyage, the first serious journey towards the Antarctic Circle since Cook and the start of modern Antarctic exploration. The second edition includes Weddell's Observations on the Probability of Reaching the South Pole, which was printed separately and with two new plates, and the account of the second voyage of the Beaufoy captained by Matthew Brisbane, in which he gives his impressions of the indigenous Feugens, for the first time.

With the immense benefit of benign weather, James Weddell (1787-1834) managed to sail further south than any man before him, 3 degrees further than Cook, and was rewarded by his discovery of the entire Weddell Sea. Even when sail ships were replaced by steam ships, and wooden hulls by metallic ice-cutters, his explorations were difficult to duplicate. The book also contains a wealth of information on the natural and human history of South Georgia, the Falkland Islands and the South Shetland Islands, as well as his disbelief in the fictitious Aurora Islands, and his account of the first party ever to winter in the Antarctic (albeit north of the Antarctic Circle).

Second edition; 8vo (23.5 x 14.5 cm); 6 plates including hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece, 2 folding aquatint panoramas, and 9 maps and charts, 6 of which folding, some marginal staining to a few plates, expert repairs to small tears to first leaf of adverts and first folding map, chart of South Shetland perforated with small pinholes, not affecting legibility of image, discreet ownership stamp to first blank and first few pages; early 20th-century half calf, cloth boards, spine lettered in gilt, joint splits repaired, extremities worn, internally a very good copy; 16 (ads.), iv, 324 pp.

Taurus 5; Rosove 345.B1; Conrad p31; Spence 1248.