NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION IN H.M.S. TERROR, Undertaken with a View to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores, in the Years 1836-7.

First edition. Publisher's original navy cloth boards decorated in blind, with gilt titles to the spine. Twelve lithographic plates by William Smyth, the lieutenant aboard H.M.S Terror. Fold out 'Chart of Hudson's Strait' to the rear. Publisher's 12 page catalogue dated July 1838 to the rear. A good copy, the spine has been re-laid preserving the original endpapers, the binding firm and square with bumping and rubbing to the spine ends and corners, the gilt dulled with some loss of the publishers name. The cloth is faded to the spine and edges of the boards, with some light marks and a ink name to the bottom of the lower board. The contents, with a list of names and dates in ink of people who have borrowed the book on 10 day loans (beginning Capt. Rooke in Oct [1838]) to the front pastedown which retains the original binder's label to the top corner, are a little toned to the page edges with only light spotting and toning throughout.

An account of H.M.S Terror's 1836 arctic expedition by Captain George Back, in which they were tasked with surveying the coast line between Regent's Inlet and Point Turnagain in search of the North West Passage. Setting off late in the season, meant H.M.S Terror became frozen in the Canadian Arctic, drifting along the northeast coast of Southampton Island over the winter. In July 1837 the ship was freed from the ice in Hudson's Strait, where the damaged ship was then sailed back across the Atlantic. A scarce first hand account of a perilous expedition. "Back's narrative contains principally detailed descriptions of the ice floe, its changes and its effects on the ship, together with brief notes on those sections of the Southampton Island coast to which short visits were made. Includes lists of equipment, supplies, and personnel, mention of unusual coldness of the summer of 1836, and accounts of trading with Baffin Island Eskimos" - Arctic Bibliography.