Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1972. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover with Dust Jacket.
KANE, FRANKLIN AND THE AMERICAN SEARCH FOR THE UNKNOWN NORTH
A scholarly biography of Elisha Kent Kane (1820–1857), physician, U.S. naval officer, and one of the best-known American Arctic explorers of the nineteenth century. Corner follows Kane through the First Grinnell Expedition (1850–51) and his command of the Second (1853–55), both connected with the search for Sir John Franklin, including wintering in the ice, encounters with the Inuit, exploration northward, and the eventual abandonment of the Advance and escape.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: ILLUSTRATED ARCTIC BIOGRAPHY.
Hardcover, approximately 9.5 inches tall. xiii, 306 pages, with notes and index. Illustrated throughout with portraits, contemporary photographs and engravings, expedition scenes, and six maps charting the Franklin search and Kane's Arctic travels. The frontispiece reproduces an 1855 or 1856 Matthew B. Brady photograph of Kane. Publisher's cloth in pictorial dust jacket.
CONDITION: NEAR FINE IN VERY GOOD DUST JACKET.
Binding tight and square; text clean with light, even age-toning and minimal shelf handling. Dust jacket is price-clipped with light handling wear.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: ELISHA KENT KANE AND AMERICAN ARCTIC EXPLORATION.
Kane emerged as an important American figure in the international search for the missing Franklin expedition. His two Grinnell voyages helped establish an American presence in nineteenth-century Arctic exploration, while his published accounts made him a national celebrity. Corner's biography is particularly valuable for bringing together Kane's exploration, medical career, personal life, and the larger Franklin-search narrative.
A BIOGRAPHY GROUNDED IN FAMILY MATERIAL.
Corner's connection to his subject is noteworthy. A contemporary review emphasized his access to Kane family papers, while Corner explains in his preface that his own family had followed Kane's exploits since the publication of Kane's Arctic Explorations in 1856.
SUBJECTS: Elisha Kent Kane, Sir John Franklin, Franklin Expedition, Grinnell Expeditions, Arctic Exploration, Greenland, U.S. Navy, Nineteenth-Century Exploration, Polar Exploration, Advance, Biography, Maritime History, Naval History.
Item #22447
ISBN: 0877220220
Price: $20.00
Other books you may like
