Matthew Henson, Conqueror of the Arctic Ice — Co-Discover of the North Pole

With publisher’s inserted fold-out map and glassine envelope

By Robinson, Bradley

New York: National Travel Club, 1947. First Edition – stated. 8vo – 20.8 cm. [xviii], (1), 266 pp. Cartographic front end leaves, photographic rear end leaves, A Fine copy in Near Fine+ un-clipped dust jacket; tight un-cracked hinges, no foxing, folds or tears. An excellent copy with introductions by Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Peter Freuchen; Foreword by Commander Donald B. MacMillan.  This copy includes dust jacket and the tipped in large fold-out map titles “North Polar Regions” in it original glassine envelope – both map and envelope in Fine condition. A complete copy as issued in extraordinary condition.

The biography of Matthew Henson, co-discoverer of the North Pole and the earliest African American explorer. Henson met Commander Robert E. Peary in November 1887 and joined him on an expedition to Nicaragua. In 1909, Peary mounted his eighth attempt to reach the North Pole and selected Henson to be one of the team of six who would make the final run to the Pole — it was Henson who actually planted the American flag on the spot believed to be the North Pole. Although Admiral Peary received many honors, Henson was largely ignored and spent most of the next thirty years working as a clerk in a federal customs house in New York. In 1944 Congress awarded him a duplicate of the silver medal given to Peary. The illustrated rear endpapers are from Henson’s previously unpublished Arctic photographs. Arctic Bibliography 14683

$550.00 -