Through The First Antarctic Night 1898-99 (First Edition)

1900 FIRST US PRINTING.

Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940) was a physician and polar explorer during the Heroic Age of Polar exploration. This book recounts his participation as the surgeon in the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 aboard the Belgica under the command of Adrien De Gerlache de Gomery. The ship became icebound in the Bellingshausen Sea and was unexpectedly forced to over winter. This book was the first significant English-language account of over wintering in Antarctica until Gerlache's book was translated in 1998. Cook's attentiveness to the health of the men during the long winter was evident with few deaths. 

Also present on this expedition was Roald Amundsen, gaining his only Antarctic experience before heading up his own successful 1911 expedition to reach the South Pole.

First US edition. New York: Doubleday & McClure, Co., 1900. 8vo. Original dark-blue publisher's cloth. Pages: xxiv, 478. 19 illustrations, 74 pages of plates, 4  coloured plates (incl. frontis). 

Bound in original vertically-grained blue publisher's cloth. Lettering to cover and spine stamped in gilt. Cover illustration blocked in black, white, and red. Very good. Spine weathered with some small tearing at head and foot. Some fraying of cloth at spine head. Minor wearing along edges and at extremities. Binding tight but slightly cocked. Contents in excellent condition. Very mild age toning throughout near edges. Some rough cut edges have small tearing. Plates remain bright and clear, excellently preserved.

Full title: Through The First Antarctic Night 1898-99: A Narrative Of The Voyage Of The Belgica Among Newly Discovered Lands & Over An Unknown Sea About The South Pole.

Provenance: From the library of Warwick H. Williams.

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