(Franklin, Sir John) — Richard King | Presentation copy of a rare Franklin Search item

(Franklin, Sir John) — Richard King

The Franklin Expedition from First to Last. London: John Churchill, 1855

12mo (193 x 113 mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece and plate, 3 charts, one full-page in text, the other two on a single map sheet and highlighted in red; very lightly browned. Publisher’s blind-embossed green cloth, spine gilt, yellow-coated endpapers printed with ads for other works by Dr. King; spine and extremities a little faded. Half green morocco folding-case, red morocco label.

First edition; presentation copy, inscribed on the title-page, “To Norton Shaw M.D. With the Regards of the Author Richard King.”

"King took great interest in Franklin's expedition and was one of the first to raise alarm when he failed to return. He insisted, at first on very slender evidence, that Franklin's party would be found near the mouth of the Great Fish River. His opinion was discounted and in 1847 and 1856 his offer to lead a search party was refused. His loud and continued insistence on the need to search his favoured site increased the animosity of the Admiralty, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Royal Geographical Society, who were also irritated by popular journals which took up King's point of view. Matters were not helped by King's Franklin Search from First to Last (1855) which set out his own convictions and dwelt on the obduracy of those who would not listen to him. Franklin's party was finally found by M'Clintock in 1859 in the spot King had suggested eleven years earlier. The delay, however, probably made no material difference since, even if his advice been taken immediately, it would probably have come too late to save any of Franklin's men" (ODNB). 

Very Rare: Rare Book Hub cites only the Brooke-Hitching copy (which was not presentation), 2015, for the past fifty years. The Brooke-Hitching catalogue noted that that copy apparently wanted divisional half-title before the narrative due to the pagination ( xxxviii, 3–224) and the lack of a leaf signed A1, but the same anomaly is present in the Benttinen copy and probably reflects the way the book was issued.

REFERENCES:

Sabin 37797; Staton & Tremaine 3571

PROVENANC:

Norton Shaw, M.D. (presentation inscription) — Benjamin B. Horton (nineteenth-century signature on front pastedown and head of page [iii]) — Benjamin B. Horton Jr. (a juvenile "Junr" added to the signature on the endpaper)