VEER, Gerrit de.

by Gerrit de Veer

£10,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

The rare second edition of the French translation of De Veer‚Äôs account of three most important polar voyages in search of the Northeast Passage to China and the East Indies, commanded by Willem Barents, with exceptional provenance; from the library of the celebrated astronomer Joseph Jér√¥me de Lalande including his notes and side notes. The three expeditions recounted here took place in 1594, 1595, 1596-1597. The commander of the three voyages was the pilot Willem Barents of Amsterdam. Gerrit De Veer himself only took part in the last two expeditions and described the first expedition from Barents notes. The account of the third voyage, during which the Dutch sailors had to winter at Novaya Zemlya, occupies more than half of the work. The three accounts include de Veer‚Äôs eyewitness journal, as a crew-member, of Barents‚Äô disastrous final voyage in 1596-97: a tale of extreme hardship and danger and it describes in the form of a daily diary the crew‚Äôs winter in a hut built from ship‚Äôs timbers on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, after their ship had been crushed by ice. It is the earliest recorded wintering this far north. ‚ÄúThese voyages proved Barents one of history‚Äôs greatest arctic navigators. The first foray began in 1594, when Barents directed his ships down the length of Nova Zembla. Blocked by seasonal ice from further passage, the Dutch retraced their course to Vaigatz and passed through the Kara Sea as far as the latitude of Ob. The relative success of this eff

• Binding: Hardcover

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