NANSEN, Fridtjof.

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The First Crossing of Greenland. First edition in English, inscribed by the author on the half-title of Volume I, "To Mrs Lewis from her friend Fridtjof Nansen 14 June, 1906." Marie Lewis, an admirer of the great explorer, helped him source rooms at 36 Victoria Street after he presented his credentials as Norway's first ambassador to Britain in May 1906.Nansen cut a striking figure and enjoyed a reputation as a womanizer. That summer, he ducked "a genuine engagement with [Sir John] Scott Keltie, where he would have been introduced to Captain Scott, in order to go down and see Marie Lewis at the seaside resort of Sheringham instead. 'I cannot blame you,' was Keltie's mild reproach. 'I think Sheringham is an excuse for committing any crime'" (Huntford). After he returned to London, Lewis wrote to him chattily: "We have been bathing every day and of course my sister has missed you in the water and also for giving her the finishing touches with powder" (quoted in Huntford).Nansen's Norwegian Greenland Expedition of 1888-89 accomplished a significant feat when he became the first to ski across the hitherto uncharted interior of Greenland. Nansen and his five companions took six weeks to ski across the ice cap and wintered in Nuuk. His account was first published in Norwegian the same year (Paa ski over Grønland).

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