Elisha Kent Kane

A first edition, first state of Arctic Explorations by Elisha Kent Kane.

• Sold as a set of 2 volumes.
• Elisha Kent Kane (American).
• The Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, 1853, '54, '55.
• Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1856.
• Octavo.
• With engraved vignette titles, engraved portrait frontispieces of Kane and Grinnell, 18 engraved plates with tissue guards, 3 maps, one of them folding, folding isothermal chart, and numerous wood engravings in the text.
• Bound in the publisher's dark brown wave-grain cloth, gilt-lettered spine, decorative blind frames to boards, enclosing blind ship vignettes to front.

This edition with folding map without "Kane Sea" labeling the expanse between Smith Strait and Kennedy Channel: the appellation was inserted only after an American historian of Arctic exploration, Colonel Peter Force, wrote to the publishers demonstrating that Kane's discovery of the strait had been suppressed. "In a brief life of thirty-six years, mostly in ill health, Elisha Kent participated in two Arctic expeditions and by the time of his death in 1857 was regarded as a true American hero and one of the nation's most popular authors … Little went right in the second expedition [but] there were many notable achievements … The discoveries of Kennedy Channel, the Kane Basin, a record north of 80° 10'N, and the sighting of the Humboldt Glacier were important firsts for Kane."