PEARY, Robert Edwin.

The North Pole . . . With an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt. One hundred and sixteen illustrations from photographs.

London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1910. 4to (250 x 190 mm), pp. xii, 326; original grey cloth. First London edition. Peary’s account of his last expedition, in which he claimed to have reached the North Pole. ‘The Pole at last!!! The prize of 3 centuries, my dream and ambition for 23 years. Mine at last’ (Peary’s diary quoted in Fleming, Ninety degrees north p. 363). This assertion, however, has remained subject to doubt as no one in the party on the final stage of the journey was sufficiently trained in navigation to confirm Peary’s measurements, at times inaccurate. Also, the speeds which the expedition achieved in its final stages were about three times those made until then. This would only have been possible if no pressure ridges existed but Henson’s description of tortured detours suggests otherwise. To Peary’s irritation, he returned from the Arctic only to discover that Frederick Cook maintained that he had reached the North Pole the previous year.

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• ordernr.: T2388

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