Author's presentation copy
Fighting the Polar Ice.
New York: Doubleday, Page & Co, 1906.
Price: $600.00
About the item
First edition. Illustrated throughout. xxii, 296, [vi] pp. 8vo. Author's presentation copy. Original blindstamped green cloth, spine gilt, t.e.g. Partially unopened, extremities slightly rubbed. Gift inscription 1906 on flyleaf. A very good copy.
Item #302120
Inscribed on the half-title: "To F.L. Root with remembrance of the days at the Realty Trust and best wishes Anthony Fiala April 29/[19]38".
The Ziegler Polar Expedition - or Fiala expedition - was a failed attempt to reach the North Pole.
Departing Tromso in June 1903, the party made their way north as far as Teplitz Bay before their ship, America, was frozen in. Early on the morning of November 12, the ice began to crush the ship and at 8am, Fiala writes: "The ship was thrown over to starboard and her bow raised up on the ice." There is an accompanying image eerily reminiscent of Hurley's photographs of the Endurance similarly lost to the ice. Undaunted, the expedition continued and made three attempts to reach the pole, all unsuccessful.
