EXPLORERS CLUB ISSUE (200 NUMBERED & SIGNED COPIES) SIGNED BY ROCKWELL KENT/ VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON/ S. LEACOCK
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE ARCTIC by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Introduction by Stephen Leacock telling how this book came to be written.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938.
Price: $550.00
About the item
First edition, signed issue (printed for Explorer's Club); #69 of 200 numbered copies, printed for the Explorers Club, signed by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Rockwell Kent and Stephen Leacock [Arctic Bibliography 16873]. Frontispiece by Rockwell Kent. 4 maps. 381pp. 8vo. EXPLORERS CLUB ISSUE (200 NUMBERED & SIGNED COPIES)
SIGNED BY ROCKWELL KENT/ VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON/ S. LEACOCK. Cloth and boards. Faint soiling on blue top edge of text block, else a fine copy (binding is bright, text and illustrations are fresh and clean) in very good dust jacket. The dark blue dust jacket (on laid paper), printed in black and light blue on spine, has moderate tanning on spine (spine has light wear and nick at crown of spine), lower spine has a soil mark (circa one-inch square shadow), else very good (front and rear panels are fresh and bright); scarce in dust jacket. ARCTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY 16873.
Item #346354
An elusive title in this signed issue, especially in dust jacket (printed in an edition of 200 numbered and signed copies for the Explorers Club). Contains an account of the disappearance of the Greenland colony, the death of Thomas Simpson, the lost Franklin expedition, speculation on the fate of Andree's ballooning expedition, and a study of the circumstances surrounding the missing Soviet fliers. The trade edition was published the following year
Signed by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (and numbered), signed by Rockwell Kent, and signed by Stephen Leacock. The publisher's colophon leaf states: "This special edition... of Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic, consisting of two hundred numbered copies, has been printed for the Explorers Club. Each copy contains a frontispiece by Rockwell Kent and is autographed by both Mr. Stefansson and Mr. Kent. This is copy No. ('69')" [signed by Vilhjalmur Stefansson on colophon (at conclusion of limitation statement); signed by Rockwell Kent on frontispiece (in lower margin) and additionally signed by Stephen Leacock, at conclusion of his four-page introduction (on p. viii)].
