Phipps, Constantine John | First edition of this illustrated voyage to the North Pole

Phipps, Constantine John

A Voyage Towards the North Pole Undertaken by His Majesty's Command 1773. London: J. Nourse, 1774

4to (290 x 225 mm). Half-title, 15 folding maps and plates, folding letterpress tables. Full speckled calf, boards paneled with gilt roll-tooling; scattered and faint foxing and offsetting; skillfully re-backed with gilt Greek key motif.

First edition of Phipps's illustrated voyage to the North Pole.

Phipps's expedition to discover a route to India via the Polar Regions had been proposed by the Earl of Sandwich, and was the first serious British attempt to reach the North Pole since the early seventeenth-century. Though the mission ostensibly failed, Hill notes: "the valuable appendix gives geographical and meteorological observations, zoological and botanical records, accounts of the distillation of fresh water from the sea, and astronomical observations." The innovative experiments Hill mentions used a thermometer designed by Lord Cavendish for measuring the temperature of water, and an apparatus designed by Dr. Charles Irving to distill salt water.

Hill concludes: "the voyage is perhaps best remembered for the presence of young Horatio Nelson [then fourteen], as midshipman aboard the Carcass, and his encounter with a polar bear."

See also lot 218 in The Ted Benttinen Library of Exploration and Adventure.

The official account of the voyage.

REFERENCES:

Hill (2004) 1351; Sabin 62572