MUDGE, Rev. Z. A. “North-Pole Voyages” [Nelson & Phillips, 1875]

MUDGE, Rev. Z. A. North-Pole Voyages: Embracing Sketches of the Important Facts and Incidents in the Latest American Efforts to Reach the North Pole. From the Second Grinnell Expedition to that of the Polaris.

New York: Nelson & Phillips; Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden, 1875. First edition. 7” x 4.75”, 390pp + 4pp publisher's catalogue. Dark green cloth, spine decorated with icicle motif in gilt. Illustrated with frontispiece portrait of Captain C. F. Hall and five illustrations in total. Ownership remnants to front pastedown including an early library label, with light scattered foxing and a few minor stains, most noticeably to preliminary leaves; cloth rubbed with fraying and wear at spine ends and corners, but binding remains sound and presentable. Uncommon in the trade. Good.

A concise and engaging account of nineteenth-century Arctic exploration, centered on American attempts to reach the North Pole and covering expeditions from the Grinnell ventures through the ill-fated Polaris expedition. Popular polar exploration titles from this period continue to draw strong interest, particularly in original decorative cloth and with period illustrations of ships, ice fields, and Arctic wildlife such as the walrus plate present here.