The ‘Author's Autograph Edition’ of Byrd’s Account of First American Antarctic Expedition
BYRD, Richard Evelyn.
Little America. Aerial Exploration in the Antarctic. The Flight to the South Pole. New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press for G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1930.
8vo (245 x 160mm), pp. [2 (blank l.)], [2 (limitation statement, verso blank)], xvi, 436, [4 (blank ll.)]; title printed in blue and black, and with vignette printed in blue; photogravure portrait frontispiece after Rebecca Lindon Taylor with tissue guard with caption printed in red, 55 half-tone plates, and 4 maps and plans, 2 folding and bound to throw clear, headpieces to foreword, contents, illustrations, and each chapter; very lightly browned; original half vellum gilt over sky-blue boards, the spine lettered and ruled in gilt, uncut, a few quires unopened, sky-blue endpapers; a few light spots or marks on binding, otherwise a very good copy; provenance: newspaper clipping dated ‘Wednesday Morning’ (presumably 22 April 1931) about the death of Byrd’s dog ‘Igloo’ tipped onto first blank l.
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Little America. Aerial Exploration in the Antarctic. The Flight to the South Pole.
First edition, ‘Author’s Autograph Edition’, no. 348 of 1,000 copies signed by Byrd and the publishers, printed on Ragleaf All Rag Paper. Little America was the leader’s account of the first Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928 to 1930, which was the first American Antarctic expedition. It was undertaken with three aeroplanes – a Ford trimotor, a Fokker Universal and a Fairchild, all modified for extreme conditions – and in the course of the expedition Byrd made his first Antarctic flight and became the first person to fly to the South Pole and back. As Conrad states, the ‘geographical accomplishments were extensive. The expedition made easterly flights to beyond Edward VII Land and discovered the Edsel Ford Ranges (later Ford Ranges), Marie Byrd Land and Rockefeller Mountains, examining the latter. [Lawrence McKinley] Gould made a geological reconnaissance of Queen Maud Mountains, 175 miles of which were mapped from the ground and the air. Amundsen's Carmen Land was disproved and Byrd overflew the Pole’ (p. 251).
The ‘Author’s Autograph Edition’ of 1,000 copies signed by Byrd was published at the same time as the first trade edition, but was produced to much higher standards: it was bound in half vellum, the text was printed on rag paper on larger sheets in a different type-setting, which extended to 436 pages (rather than 422), and the illustrations were printed on the rectos only of the plates (rather than printed recto-and-verso on a smaller number of plates).
Spence 227; Taurus 114; cf. Conrad p. 253 (1st trade ed.).