The Life and Work of the Rev. E. J. Peck Among The Eskimos

Arthur Lewis
London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904.
First Edition.

20cm x 14cm. xvi, 350 pages, frontispiece, black and white photographs, map. Blue cloth, gilt lettering and decoration, no jacket.

Anglican missionary E. J. Peck (1850-1924) founded the first permanent mission on Baffin Island, Nunavut. He was later offered a whaling station on Blacklead Island as a mission, where he lived in relative isolation with the Inuit people for ten years. Peck was an astute ethnographer. Lifestyles, belief systems, legends, and shamananic rituals of the Inuit were all documented at the request of anthropologist Franz Boas. Peck is particularly notable for developing Inuktitut syllabics and the first substantial English-Inuktitut dictionary, using the Cree syllabary and Horden and Watkins’ orthography. He translated large parts of scripture into Inuktitut, introducing written language into a previously oral tradition. An insight into a culture as well as an individual missionary.

General wear to boards with light chipping to head and tail. Binding tender, one plate loose. Previous owner’s signature to front free endpaper. Minor foxing and soiling. Good Condition.

SOLD