Expedition Antarctique Belge. Au Pays des Manchots: Recit du Voyage de la Belgica

Georges Lecointe

Bruxelles

:

Societe Belge de Libraire

,

1904

.
First Edition. Signed by Author

25.5cm x 16.6cm. 368 pages, 5 folding maps, black and white illustrations in the text. Contemporary full vellum with the original wrappers bound in, leather labels, gilt lettering, decorative endpapers. Text is in French.

Account of the captain of the RV Belgica, the second in command of the first Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899. Considered the first expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, it was the first expedition to spend the entire winter in the region. Trapped in the ice for a year, they were ill prepared, the polar night driving a number of the crew mad and with scurvy setting in they were forced to subsist on penguin (largely considered inedible). Despite the challenges much scientific data was gathered including around 700 rock samples, for the first time meteorological observations were recorded for a full Antarctic year, and 188 new animal species were discovered. This superlative copy bound in full vellum with leather labels and decorative endpapers, and with a bound in manuscript letter dated 26 July 1904 from Lecointe to Madame Van Halteren requesting her to give the book to her daughter, Miss Van Halteren, signed by Lecointe, also with his monogram stamp and the stamp of the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

Minor cracking at head and tail of upper joint, still very firm. The original wrappers showing some light wear. Minor tanning. The folding maps with some marginal creasing at the gutter fold. Near Fine Condition.