In Northern Mists.

£750 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

First edition in English, published the same year as the Norwegian original, and a very handsome copy in the superior gilt-stamped variant binding: In Northern Mists is also encountered with the front boards lettered and panelled solely in black. Nansen wrote the book at the request of the Royal Geographical Society: 'this book owes its existence to a rash promise made some years ago to my friend [the geographer] Dr. J. Scott Keltie'. It is an historical survey of the opening of the Arctic from classical antiquity to Cabot and the Portuguese discoveries in the north-west, and includes an account of the Viking discovery of America. First English edition; 2 vols, 4to (25 x 19 cm); tipped-in coloured frontispieces (with tissue guards), numerous wood-engraved illustrations and maps in the text, blank bookplates to pastedowns; publisher's original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, upper boards blind panelled and lettered in gilt with gilt design of low sun over sea and mountains with approaching Viking long ship to upper boards, a fine set; xviii, 384; xiii, 420 pp. Arctic Bibliography 11993; Howgego IV, N4.

• Binding: Hardcover

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