Farthest North.

The first edition of the official account of the Fram expedition precedes the first Norwegian edition of the same year. The expedition was "a remarkable achievement in Polar exploration" (Printing and the Mind of Man), undertaken "with the object of investigating the polar basin north of Eurasia by drifting in the ice with the currents northwest from the New Siberian Islands across or near the Pole" (Arctic Bibliography). "Nansen returned to international acclaim not only for the voyage itself but for its results, proof of a deep Arctic Ocean, free of any land masses or islands, and extensive data on magnetism, zoology, and oceanography. His account of the journey, Farthest North, was a worldwide bestseller and prepared him for an effective life of diplomacy" (Books on Ice). Farthest North is beautifully illustrated from photographs and from Nansen's own sketches, for which he "claims no artistic merit," but which are nonetheless highly atmospheric and effective.

First edition; 2 volumes, large 8vo (24.5 x 17.5 cm); 129 plates including frontispieces, of which 16 colour plates, 4 folding maps, bookplates to pastedowns, contemporary ownership inscription to endpaper of second volume; publisher's blue-green vertical-ribbed cloth, spines lettered in gilt, gilt lettering and pictorial vignette of the Fram to upper boards, top and fore edges untrimmed, light wear to extremities, inner hinges a little weak, second volume a little cocked, a very good set; xiii, [2], 510, [2]; xiii, [2], 671, [2]pp.

Arctic Bibliography 11983; Books on Ice 5.2; Howgego III N3; Printing and the Mind of Man 384.