Through the First Antarctic Night | 1898-1899; A Narrative of the Voyage of the "Belgica" among newly discovered lands and over an unknown sea about the South Pole

New York: Doubleday & McClure Co, 1900. First Edition. Very Good. Trade Edition, Ex-Library, 8vo [9x6.5in]; xxiv, 478 pp., 82 of 84 plates of 120 images including color frontispiece with tissue guard and three color illustrations without tissue guards, 3 maps, and 21 illustrations in text, six appendices of scientific summaries and index; Rebound in dark blue cloth covers with silver lettering on spine and front, all edges trimmed with rounded corners; Negligible shelf wear to covers, edges and corners, some soiling and spots to text and plates, chip on p. 41, several small closed tears along text edges, unobtrusive perforation stamp of Library Association of Portland Or. on title page and pp. 3, 405 and 467 with handwritten number in ink on dedication page, no other library markings or other prior owner markings. Near fine covers with very good interior. [Rosove 76.A2, Howgego III C24(C)]. Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940) was a physician and polar explorer during the Heroic Age of Polar exploration. He also organized one of the first polar tourist excursions to Greenland. He began his polar experience in 1891 as a surgeon on Robert Peary's second Greenland expedition. This book is about his participation in the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 in the Belgica under the command of Adrien De Gerlache de Gomery. The ship became icebound in the Bellingshausen Sea and was 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. From Rosove, this book was "superior to the other two from both literary and informational viewpoints. Cook based his book .... on his diary, notes and recollections; he included some of the scientific results in the appendices ..." Roald Amundsen was the mate on the expedition and gained his only Antarctic experience before his own expedition in 1911 to reach the South Pole.