AN ARCTIC VOYAGE TO BAFFIN'S BAY AND LANCASTER SOUND, in Search of Friends with Sir John Franklin.

First edition, later issue. 8vo. Publisher's variant dark blue cloth with titles in gilt to the spine. Black endpapers. Trimmed bottom edge. Without publisher's adverts. Illustrated with a tinted lithographic frontispiece and a folding map, hand-coloured in outline. A fine copy, the binding square and tight, the cloth and gilt bright and fresh. The contents, with toning to the half title and last leaf as often, are otherwise clean and bright throughout.

A scarce variant comprising the trimmed sheets of the 1850 first edition, bound after John van Voorst's retirement in 1886, presumably by his assistants who continued the business under the name Gurney and Jackson. The Scottish physician, writer and explorer Robert Goodsir's account of his voyage in search of his brother, Henry Goodsir, who had been appointed surgeon and naturalist on the doomed 1845 Sir John Franklin Expedition seeking the Northwest Passage. After the disappearance of Franklin and his men, Goodsir resolved to play an active role in locating his brother and the rest of the expedition, writing to Lady Jane Franklin to offer his services. Through her he was introduced to Captain William Penny, who hired him as surgeon on the whaler Advice for the 1849 Arctic season. Together with the whaler Truelove, the Advice formed part of a dual British Whaling and Franklin Search Expedition, which, although profitable for the Advice, was not successful in its search for Franklin, after having been forced to turn back by impacted ice in Lancaster Sound. In the present work, based upon his journal, Goodsir describes the expedition in great detail, providing vivid depictions of the region, the whaling process, the various dangers encountered, such as ice floes, icebergs, storm, and shipwrecks, as well as the wildlife observed and interactions with the Inuit. One of the earliest and scarcer titles relating to the Franklin rescue efforts. (Sabin 27931; Arctic Bibliography 5919)