[AMUNDSEN, Roald (1872-1928)]. Roald Amundsen's "The North West Passage"; Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Gjöa" 1903-1907. Published by E. P. Dutton, New York, 1908.
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION; signed by author, complete in two volumes, cloth-bound, hardcover, quarto (23.5cm x 16cm), pp. [xiii], 335; [ix], 397. English text. Bound in publisher's original black cloth stamped in gilt with a map tracing Amundsen's route from Norway to Nome, Alaska. Top page edges gilt, initial and terminal blanks plus half-titles present, frontispieces, 3 colour maps (two of them folding), 139 black-and-white photo illustrations, indexes. With a postcard of the Amundsen's sloop, the Gjoa, entering San Francisco harbour tipped-in to front pastedown of vol. I and signed by Roald Amundsen in black ink. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Bindings tight, secure and square. Covers beautifully preserved. Interiors largely fresh and clean with a faint trace of browning to endpapers. Previous owner signature to front endpapers. Some old taped repairs to the folding maps. Lacking dust jackets. A handsome set and scarce thus.
Notes: An unusually well-preserved first American edition (from the London plates) of the first English translation of Amundsen's account of the three-year journey through the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (a goal that had eluded explorers for centuries). Amundsen's success was due in part to his choice of a small, shallow-bottomed ship capable of squeezing through shoreline channels that heavier vessels could not manage. First American edition, published from the London sheets, this copy with a signed postcard by the author neatly tipped-in to vol. I; the captioned postcard depicting the Norwegian sloop, Gjoa, entering San Francisco harbour.
