Franklin rarity - inscribed

Inscribed on title page: 'J.W. Nunn Esq / with the author's /regards'.

Richard King's Franklin Expedition is one of the rarest of Arctic titles. King took great interest in Franklin's expedition and was one of the first to raise the alarm when he failed to return. He insisted, at first on very slender evidence, that Franklin's party would be found near the mouth of the Great Fish River. His opinion was discounted and in 1847 and 1856 his offer to lead a search party was refused. His loud and continued insistence on the need to search his favoured site increased the animosity of the Admiralty, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Royal Geographical Society, who were also irritated by popular journals which took up King's point of view. Franklin's party was finally found by M'Clintock in 1859 in the spot King had suggested eleven years earlier.

King had been surgeon and naturalist on the Back expedition and the present work includes comment on the importance of the Back River route to find Franklin.

First edition; 8vo; inscribed presentation copy, xxxviii, 3-224 pp., 3 charts (one in text) and 2 plates, original blue blindstamped cloth, sometime rebacked, new endpapers, a good copy.

Arctic Bib. 8706; Sabin 37797; Staton & Tremaine 3571.