It has been our pleasure to add to our collection over recent months many acquisitions from Mr. Eric Kenneth Prentice Back, known as Kenn Back. Back's interests, both personally and professionally, generally focus on the history and progress of exploration, in particular that of the Arctic regions; however, his library is by no means limited to arctic works, and we have listed all sorts of various works containing his bookplates.

But first, a little about the works' previous owner. Back is the descendent of Captain George Back (1796-1878), a British Royal Navy officer and naturalist known for his exploration of the Canadian Arctic, commanding HMS Terror during his expedition to the northern end of Hudson Bay. Following in his ancestor's footsteps, Kenn Back received the Polar Medal in 1979 for his work as a meteorologist for the British Antarctic Survey. He passed eight winters in Antarctica, serving as base commander at a number of stations, including Rothera, Faraday and Halley. His bookplates are charmingly illustrated with seabirds and arctic flora, and here, we've compiled our favourite works ex-libris Kenn Back, which combine their interest in their own right with the polar association of Back.

British Antarctic Survey Air Operations Manual

A very scarce insight into inner workings of polar aircraft working for the British Antarctic Survey, whom this work was published by and for in 1976. The operations manual could be found aboard all polar research aircraft and polar bases, and details information on the flight, take-off procedures, landing procedures, refuelling, and all manner of emergencies, including communications failures, the need to abandon the aircraft and survival and rescue methods. The nature of this manual ensures its scarcity, and it would make an excellent addition to the library of a keen aviator, particularly one interested in polar research.

A Woman's Way through Unknown Labrador

A particularly scarce description of the journey of the first white woman to explore Labrador is included in Back's collection, penned by Mina Hubbard, the wife of Leonidas Hubbard, whose 1903 expedition to the Labrador resulted in his untimely death from starvation. His widow later completed the first accurate maps of the Nascaupee and George River system. After his death, a surviving member of his team, Dillon Wallace, wrote an autobiographical account of the expedition. Mina Hubbard felt that this work damaged her husband's reputation, and set out on an expedition of her own to clear his name; Wallace made an expedition departing on the same day. Hubbard's expedition reached their destination of the George River post seven weeks in advance of Wallace. 'A Woman's Way Through Labrador' describes Mina Hubbard's encounters with the local Naskapi and Montagnais people, as well as the caribou found on her travels. This is a first edition, last seen at auction in 1975, illustrated throughout and containing Kenn Back's bookplate.


Our other works detailing voyages from Back's library include two first editions of 'A First Rate Tragedy', handling Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, 'With the Aurora in the Antarctic', which describes John King Davis' Australasian expedition to Antarctica in 1911, and a first edition of 'Discovery II in the Antarctic', which spans forty years of expeditions by the vessel Discovery II. Less cheerily, the failings of various journeys is detailing in our first edition of 'Shipwrecks', an uncommon and richly illustrated work detailing the history of shipwrecks around New Zealand between 1795 to 1936.

You can view our full library of voyage-related works here.

Circumpolar Arctic Flora

From a botanical point of view, the climate of the polar regions ensures that local flora is rather unlike anything found elsewhere in the world, and Nicholas Polunin's extensive research into the flora of arctic areas provides brilliant detail. His work 'Circumpolar Arctic Flora' took nearly twenty years of preparation, and explores nearly nine hundred different species of vascular plant, each illustrated. Kenn Back's example of this work is in excellent condition, and complete with a dust wrapper.



We also have a number of more general polar works, such as an illustrated copy of 'The Antarctic Regions' from 1900, a 1959 'Antarctica: The Story of a Continent' penned by Frank Debenham, 'My Eskimo Life', detailing the author's day-to-day life in Greenland, 'Such is the Antarctic', describing Lars Christensen's impression of an arctic trip in the early 1930s, as well as 'Fangst', a scarce three volume collection of the works of Bjarne Aagaard Storm on arctic exploration complete with the extremely scarce dust wrappers in excellent condition.

You can see our full polar collection here.

And, some more unexpected works from Back's collection.

The Fables of La Fontaine

A stunning example of the illustrations of Gustave Dore, this is an English translation of Jean de la Fontaine's renowned fables, an important piece of the history of French literature. Presented in a lovely half morocco binding, this charming collection of fables contains works such as 'The Grasshopper and the Ant', 'The Raven and the Fox' and 'The Two Mules'. Kenn Back's bookplate rather sets off the marvellously marbled endpapers. This work dates from circa 1870, and is a glorious example combining the elegant illustrations of Gustave Dore and the nuance of Fontaine's fables. Have a look at Kenn Back's copy here.

The Passion-Flower Hotel

Also from the library of Kenn Back is a first edition, first impression of 'The Passion-Flower Hotel', a coming-of-age novel set in an all girls' boarding school in the United Kingdom. The work lightly handles the virginity of the young girls as they plan to set up a 'service' for the local boys' school. It was written by Roger Longrigg Erskine under the pseudonym Rosalind Erskine, a fact which caused great controversy when his deceit was discovered due to the subject matter. Complete with the unclipped dust wrapper, ours is a fine first edition of a notorious work from the mid twentieth century.

The Romances of Herman Melville

In a custom-built slipcase, 'The Romances of Herman Melville' dating to 1931 contains the great romances of this important American writer, including his magnum opus, 'Moby Dick', as well as 'Typee', 'Omoo', 'Mardi', 'White-Jacket', 'Israel Potter' and 'Redburn'. Demonstrating the literary side of Back's interest in adventure and voyages, this work also contains the bookplate of a Frederic Gauntlett, possibly Frederic John Gauntlett (1870-1951), a shipbuilder and survivor of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, which killed 1,198 passengers and crew, making it an edition of this work with many fascinating associations.




The majority of Kenn Back's collection can be found with our polar works however, please do get in touch if you are looking for anything in particular and we will be more than happy to help.