1853 A True Description of three Voyages by the North-East towards Cathay and China

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, First Edition, Folding Maps, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed, Very Scarce

A very scarce first edition thus, being the first edition of this work published for the Hakluyt Society, and edited by English traveller, geographer and Biblical critic Charles Tilstone Beke.

Inscribed by Beke to the title page head: 'Miles J. Chabot Esq, from the Editor'.

First published in 1609, this is Dutch officer Gerrit de Veer's account of his time aboard Willem Barentsz' 1595 and 1596 second and third voyages in search of the Northeast Passage.

De Veer kept a diary of the voyages, in which it is recorded that he was the first person to observe and record the Novaya Zemlya effect (an atmospheric mirage), and the first Westerner to observe hypervitaminosis, a condition caused by eating the liver of a polar bear.

Illustrated with four folding maps, and twelve double paged plates. Collated, complete.

With eight pages of advertisements to the start of the work.

Published for The Hakluyt Society, a scholarly organisation that published annotated editions of primary sources on historic voyages, travels, and geographical exploration.