BARRINGTON, Daines.
The Possibility of Approaching the North Pole Asserted.
New York: James Eastburn & Co , 1818.
$750.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-150764
+$500
"This little book is quiet uncommon": First Edition of Daines Barrington's The Possibility of Approaching the North Pole Asserted
First separate American edition of this work arguing that reaching the North Pole was possible. Octavo, bound in modern half brown calf over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in five compartments within raised bands, black calf spine labels, title page vignette, with a folding frontispiece map of the North Pole. With an appendix containing papers on the same subject, and on a northwest passage by Colonel Beaufoy, F.R.S. In near fine condition with light toning.
Originally published in Barrington's Miscellanies in 1781, this treatise was first separately published simultaneously in London and New York in 1818. A rare early example of simultaneous publishing, this new edition, occasioned by renewed interest in reaching the North Pole and searching for the Northwest Passage, includes "an appendix of 34 pages discussing these matters in a question-and-answer format... [and] new material is offered on the conditions of the people of the Arctic regions. This little book is quiet uncommon. In 1774 and 1775, Barrington had published three new very rare pamphlets called 'The Probability of Reaching the North Pole'" (Hill, 346). 'Arctic Bibliography' 1092.
The Possibility of Approaching the North Pole Asserted.
$750.00
In Stock
